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How 'the best defensive 13 England have ever had' would fix their issues

England's George Ford and Henry Slade/ PA

While it was England’s attack, or lack thereof in the final quarter, that came under scrutiny following their loss to the All Blacks, it is the turn of the defence to be picked apart this week, as Australia did with consummate ease in their victory at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium.

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Where Steve Borthwick and Joe El-Abd begin trying to fix an ailing defence that conceded 42 points at home is anyone’s guess. Presumably, it will start with England’s defensive weakness around the breakdown, but they were not much more secure around the fringes once the Wallabies spread the ball wide with some slick handling.

Maybe they will try to address the England players’ actual tackling capabilities. Regardless of what defensive system is used, 36 missed tackles will seldom win a side a Test match. The blitz defence may not help with those figures, but the way Australia’s Tom Wright and Angus Bell (yes, their loosehead) were able to jink through England’s defence should have deeply concerned Borthwick.

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The 20-min red card explained by referee Karl Dickson

Referee Karl Dickson explains the 20-min red card system that is in place during the Autumn Nations Series.

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The 20-min red card explained by referee Karl Dickson

Referee Karl Dickson explains the 20-min red card system that is in place during the Autumn Nations Series.

Possibly it is when and where the blitz defence is deployed that will be worked on this week having conceded a match-winning try at the death from 40 metres out.

That is a lot to address and very little time to do it with the double world champions and number one ranked side in the world South Africa coming to London on Saturday.

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England internationals Ben Youngs and Anthony Watson went over England’s blitz defence on the For the Love of Rugby podcast in the wake of the loss and how it can be fixed.

Watson urged England to increase their number of dominant tackles if they wish for the blitz defence to work, which would slow down the opposition’s speed of ball.

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Quoting former England centre Jonathan Joseph, who Watson described as “the best defensive 13 England have ever had,” the Leicester Tigers winger said England must have a “bail-out” in defence rather than persistently adopting the blitz.

“My concern is around the blitz and the areas that they were blitzing from,” Watson said.

“Once Australia got go-forward in and around the ruck and they were constantly getting on the front foot, it becomes very hard because as a blitz defence you’re constantly coming up and back-tracking. If you’ve got speed of ball like Australia did in and around the ruck it becomes very hard to be set, to have the right numbers, to be connected with your numbers inside and outside, and that’s where holes appear or you feel vulnerable on the edge.

“So I think if that area was shored up a little bit, getting a few more dominant tackles, getting on the front foot in defence, I think it allows the blitz to work pretty successfully.

“I was talking with Jonathan Joseph, who is, in my opinion, the best defensive 13 England have ever had, and he was suggesting that there needs to be some form of bail-out. England need something when their numbers are down just to be able to connect. Not get out of the blitz defence but just and insurance blanket.

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“In a few of those situations, I think that would have saved a try. Look at the first one, for example, if [George] Furbank doesn’t come up and in in a sort of blitzish style defence, I think [Ollie] Sleightholme gets to [Joseph] Suaalii and Furbank gets to Tom Wright in the corner.

“I think there are definitely scenarios where the blitz looks susceptible and it looks weak. Some of that gets solved by having better defence in and around the ruck, getting better connectedness and being set. I don’t think they should go away from it just yet. It is aggressive, it does look like it’s do-or-die, but I think it will be more successful when England are more dominant in their tackles up front, they’re set around the ruck.”

Youngs’ concern was when the blitz is deployed, citing the last play of the game when Australia were chasing the game as a time not to be so aggressive as it ultimately cost England.

This is clearly a time of transition for England in terms of their defensive strategy. Former defence coach Felix Jones frequently reiterated that it would take up to 18 months for England to be completely au fait with the system. His exit, and then the appointment of El-Abd, may have not only delayed that process, but may have muddied the waters and left plenty of confusion. That appears to be the case thus far this November.

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Comments

7 Comments
A
AA 40 days ago

Blitz defence or whatever you want is pointless when the coach takes off the 2 men who are giving the go forward .

Last week missed tackle,/ kicks . This week a very poor pass when not under pressure that gave 7 points away .

It ruins momentum .

Both games England have been on top, right up to the coach altering the team and the players coming on were far too off the pace when the heat of battle was intense.

When will Borthwick learn to leave the 9 and 10 on the pitch the full 80 mins .


T
Tom 40 days ago

Playing 9 requires a very high level of physical exertion. Replacing the 9 is a reasonable thing to do.

T
Tom 40 days ago

England's defence was becoming excellent under Felix Jones, it's not the players who are the issue. They've proven they're capable of performing defensively. It looks like there are mixed messages, we've got players flying up while others stay back creating doglegs. There is a lack of cohesion in the defensive system, changing the players isn't going to fix that. JJ was a great defended though.

A
Alex 40 days ago

England could pick from a number of bigger players to make the dominant tackle, but then you sacrifice ball-playing skills. We don't have a Jess Kriel or Bundee Aki type, or Tuilagi anymore. Therefore, does it make sense to alter things and ditch it? To me that feels the better approach. I thought the backroom staff disruption would have an effect but this has been quite a major one. Personally I always respected the quick press, pillar/post quick set and phase out, drift, repeat. It's old school but reliable. The 'press' part allows for dominant tackles to happen, though not as often. I always say look at how Scotland defends. It's abrasive and well-organised, and doesn't end up having tons if dog legs either.


Would like them to attempt to rectify it, but not hold onto it so religiously if we're getting torn to shreds still, which is what Australia did to us.

B
Bull Shark 40 days ago

I'm certainly not the best defensive 13 England has ever had - but I think the best way for England to fix their defense is to change their coaches.


Or at least ask Felix Jones to "come in to the office". Coaching remotely doesn't appear to be working.

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JW 25 minutes ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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