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Repeated card trouble and three other England talking points
By Liam Heagney
It’s been quite the transformative week for Steve Borthwick and England. The build-up to their Rugby World Cup opener was surrounded by fear and anxiety that their campaign could go pear-shaped from the off in France.
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However, they somehow found it deep within them to doggedly shake off a year of adversity under their rookie Test-level head coach to comfortably beat Argentina despite losing Tom Curry to a third-minute red card.
It’s incredible what that single win has suddenly done for their confidence. Whereas before there was an uneasy trepidation about them, now there is excitement about the road that has suddenly opened up and is poised to take them all the way to the semi-finals on the weaker side of the draw.
Having lapped up the rough and ready atmosphere of Marseille, the England show has moved along the Mediterranean coast to the sleek environs of the expensive-tastes Nice via an in-between trip back to base camp in Le Touquet-Paris-Plage on the English Channel.
Here, RugbyPass runs the rule over the Sunday night fixture versus Japan that Borthwick and co come into firm favourites in sharp contrast to last weekend’s underdogs status:
Perfect time to judge Borthwick’s ‘not indisciplined’ claim
Borthwick and assistant Kevin Sinfield were upfront this past week in alleging that England don’t have a disciplinary issue despite their recent card trouble. The concession of just seven penalties in their win over Argentina was the evidence they both hitched their wagon to.
That stat helped to limit the Pumas to just three points off the tee on this occasion compared to the South Americans landing 18 penalty points when 10 penalties were conceded in the Autumn Nations Series defeat last November.
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England, though, can’t continue to play for so long with 14 players in matches. Four red cards in six games is quite the run, with three of those punishments resulting in suspensions and the other getting rescinded.
Borthwick doubled down by having his say about World Rugby on Friday evening after England arrived at their Antibes hotel ahead of Sunday night’s game, but the easiest way to lever his team away from the ongoing debate is to not invite the issuing of cards in the first place.
The referee versus Japan, Nika Amashukeli, was the official in charge when England were temporarily reduced to 12 players on August 12 against Wales at Twickenham, Ellis Genge, Freddie Steward and Owen Farrell all sitting in the sin bin at the same time.
This pattern of regular card sanction has got to change and with the Georgian official overseeing things in Nice, there is no better moment for England to back up Borthwick’s ‘we’re not indisciplined’ argument by demonstrating they can keep 15 players on the pitch for the entire 80 minutes.
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Intriguing Ford focus with Farrell due back next week
George Ford was the England hero at Stade Velodrome, seizing the initiative and draining Argentina of their swagger with a tremendous kicking display of six penalties struck off the tee and that famed 10-minute first-half, drop goal hat-trick.
No one can deny how inspiring that display was, the out-half demonstrating that despite his long stretch away from the Test side, he still retained the ability to star at this level.
What England boss Steve Borthwick had to say on Friday night in Nice about World Rugby and recent events. #ENGvJPN #EnglandRugby #RWC2023 pic.twitter.com/paDy2TcgCU
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) September 15, 2023
The thing is, though, he assumed control in an adverse situation last week, Curry’s early red card ripping up the game plan and leaving Ford to focus on putting three, six, nine and more on the scoreboard to suck the life out of the Pumas.
The question now is can he confidently orchestrate the England attack around him in a contest that his team is expected to win by scoring the tries that have been so elusive in the Borthwick era? Eight tries in seven matches – a five-pointer scored on average once every 70 minutes – isn’t a statistic to crow about and it needs sprucing up.
Sunday night is Ford’s last outing while Farrell is still suspended and if he can ignite the attack, which is very much the missing part of the Borthwick puzzle, it will back the head coach into the corner where he surely – for his own credibility as a selector – has to keep picking Ford at No10 given the issues that Farrell and Marcus Smith both had trying to encourage creativity when they were in the jersey this year.
Ford has had a no-nonsense look about him this week, thrilled that he found himself in the right place at the right time last weekend in what was only his second start for his country since March 2021. The jersey is now his to keep, provided he does his business in a very different way against the Japanese.
England need tries to materialise to show they really have this ability in them. Borthwick pulled a gorgeous stat out of the bunker on Friday evening, highlighting that in the eight matches against tier-one teams in the 2003 and 2007 tournaments where the English respectively won the cup and reached the final, they only scored four tries, so five-pointers aren’t the be all and end all in his eyes.
However, with Eddie Jones’ bumbling England managing six tries against the Japanese in last November’s 52-13 win, five in the first 50 minutes, a barometer exists to chart current progress and an attacking step forward is required with an XV containing just four of the same starting XV from 10 months ago (Steward, Jonny May, Kyle Sinckler and Maro Itoje).
The incredible stat that has Steve Borthwick believing in his blunt England attack. #EnglandRugby #ENGvJPN #RWC2023 pic.twitter.com/o79Ry7fiTK
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) September 17, 2023
Where has the imperious Kyle Sinckler gone?
It’s been a curious few months for Sinckler, one of the stars that emerged over the course of England’s thrilling run to the 2019 final in Japan. His form was iffy through the Guinness Six Nations earlier this year as the first-choice tighthead – check out his five missed tackles against France and just a four-metre gain from six runs – and he now comes into Sunday night’s fixture with very limited recent exposure as a chest injury held him back over the August and into last weekend.
He had just 59 minutes in two caps off the Summer Nations Series bench and while there was a consolation try against Ireland in Dublin on August 19, he wasn’t able to build on that and has missed the past two matches – including the World Cup opener versus Argentina where the veteran Dan Cole rolled back the years with a reputation-restoring display at the scrum.
That efficiency from Cole has firmly laid the gauntlet down to Sinckler, but the tighthead comes into the Japanese game knowing he is the way more all-round pick as he isn’t ball adverse like Cole, who was credited with just a single carry for a zero-metre gain in Marseille.
England need an upgrade in its ball-carrying threat amongst its pack, as they have been way too predictable under Borthwick. Sinckler is the type of player capable of delivering this but the jury is out on what he can currently do.
Much like the second row Itoje, Sinckler’s game has been below par for quite a while and he will be very much wanting – and needing – a resurgence in Nice of the kind that Itoje enjoyed last weekend against the Pumas.
The celebratory antics of Ben Earl
It’s amusing how a victory has suddenly changed the optics around Ben Earl and his penchant for voraciously celebrating the opening of an envelope. It was a bad look during August, the back-rower cheering things like a crooked Ireland lineout in Dublin in a fixture where unimpressive England were being handed their arses by Andy Farrell’s second-gear Irish.
Now, amid the back-to-the-wall circumstances of 14-man England delivering against Argentina at the World Cup, the celebratory antics of Earl have been portrayed as some sort of excellent energy giver.
Each to their own, of course, but it doesn’t look like rugby, more something inherited from football’s Premier League.
We’d prefer if it was left there and for Earl to do his job capably without all this unnecessary hoopla. Let him be celebrated for his good play, not be in the headlines for the way he celebrates.
Who is praising Earl’s antics? Anyone praising that should be embarrassed. As should Earl. No place for that sort of behaviour in rugby, or any sport.
once we are all working as hard as ben earl, solidly training all week, getting picked and dropped on a dime and then still monstering blokes bigger than ourselves can we start telling him how to celebrate. he's playing well, he's excited and he's passionate...play on!!!
tell me what you want to see, not what you don't like
Sinckler had a bad game against france in the six nations, but played incredibly the week before against wales. Like the entire squad, he's struggled for form over the past few seasons, but I really don't agree that he's fallen off.