England are racing to fix their blitz, but there appears to be no appetite to abandon the high-risk, high-reward defensive approach ahead of the daunting showdown with South Africa on Saturday.
The world-champion Springboks will come to Twickenham with a vast array of attacking weapons in their armoury, to unleash on a home team reeling from shipping 42 points against Australia. The Wallabies were able to run amok in south west London, as cross-code debutant Joseph-Ausuko Sua’ali’i, the hot-stepping Tom Wright and the rest of Joe Schmidt‘s dynamic backline capitalised on the sterling groundwork of their pack.
But England’s glaring failure to protect a lead, several times, will have alarmed head coach Steve Borthwick and his new defence guru, Joe El-Abd. The latter man, who is due to return to his day job as head coach of French club Oyonnax after this Autumn Nations Series campaign, is enduring a tough, rushed introduction to international rugby; seeking to impose himself within the setup, while forced to work against the clock.
Unexpected circumstances have conspired to create a worrying mess. Felix Jones had implemented a hyper-aggressive blitz after joining up with England following last year’s World Cup triumph with the Boks, only to decide in the summer that he no longer wished to work for Borthwick. He announced that he wanted to move on just days after his friend and fitness expert Aled Walters revealed that he was defecting to Ireland.
Jones is currently serving his 12-month notice period from Dublin – nominally performing a remote analysis role. His absence has left England in defensive transition again and it’s not going well.
Steve Borthwick is searching for answers after suffering back-to-back Autumn international defeats
England are reeling after shipping 42 points against Australia in their defeat at Twickenham
England saw their lead collapse as Australia came from behind to seal a famous win at Twickenham
El-Abd is highly rated by Borthwick, but he will have gone through torment on Saturday as the Wallabies were given far too much freedom to showcase their running threat and claim five tries, including a last-gasp winner out wide by Max Jorgensen.
England missed a whopping 35 tackles and at times they were horribly out of sync in attempting to hold the line in a face of a high-octane onslaught. The blitz was blasted apart, time and time again. The quest for precious line speed merely seemed to leave home defenders isolated and exposed, hesitant and confused.
Mail Sport columnist and former Wales captain Dan Biggar claimed that Borthwick and El-Abd were out-foxed by the wily Schmidt.
‘If you go back to the match against New Zealand, I thought there was quite a big improvement in their defence,’ said Biggar. ‘But Australia didn’t give them many chances to get off the line, which was clever.
‘Their front five were excellent and they played a lot of short-pass rugby around the ruck. When they eventually fired a shot with the centres, it was off the back of two or three phases of short-pop, pick-and-go rugby that got England going backwards.
‘We should give a lot of credit to Australia because Joe Schmidt had his tactics spot on. If you rewind to the All Blacks game, England were winning the collisions. Australia’s ball was quick and New Zealand’s was slow. If you win collisions, you will slow down the opposition ball.
England’s glaring failure to protect a lead against Australia, several times, will have alarmed new defence guru, Joe El-Abd (pictured)
‘England lost the game to the Wallabies on physicality. When Sua’ali’i got his offload away for the first try, Australia had already won three or four phases of pick-and-go that nullified England’s line speed. When you’re losing those collisions, you’re retreating and looking in at the ruck rather than the pictures in front of you.
‘Australia were moving forward a metre at a time in those collisions. Tom Curry going off didn’t help because it left England’s back row looking a little bit unbalanced with Alex Dombrandt replacing him. Dombrandt wants the game nice and loose and open; his game isn’t really about the big collisions.’
Implementing a blitz system requires supreme organisation and understanding, otherwise it can be picked apart by canny opponents. Australia were adept at pounding on to the front foot and then going round the outside of England’s defence with slick handling.
The Springboks can do both those things, but also have a very clever tactical kicking game, which will allow them to send the ball in behind the onrushing Englishmen.
England must find a way to fix the blitz that saw them crumble to defeat against Australia
‘England have been shipping line breaks,’ added Biggar. ‘Their approach is to apply as much pressure as possible. If Lawrence and Slade fly up past the ball, they’re effectively out of the game; you can’t track any offloads and teams will cut through you.
‘You need to make sure your line speed is always quick and aggressive but you can’t over-cook it or you’ll get picked open by a short ball or an offload.
‘People talk about trust and disconnects. You can look at the first try when Ollie Sleighthome bit in and ask, ‘Could he have waited a bit longer?’ It’s easy to say from the outside, but in the moment it’s not that simple.
‘When you come up against a brilliant offload, sometimes you’ve just got to hold your hands up. Australia’s two centres were as good as any midfield pair I’ve seen this autumn and a good attack will normally beat a good defence.
‘Teams are blitzing because they want to take time and space away from the best opposition players. Under Shaun Edwards, Wales would never blitz off scrums because you’re not always that well connected. We’d take a few aggressive steps and then drift; that’s the alternative. When you do that, any wide ruck has to be targeted and slowed down so the forwards can get off the scrum and fold into position.’
England appear convinced that their system is the right one, but they are rushing to plug the holes in it before South Africa turn up at Twickenham with all their multi-purpose firepower. Following a squad inquest into the setback last Saturday, Northampton wing Tommy Freeman said: ‘We don’t want to be conceding 40 points at Twickenham, we want to make it a fortress.’
Asked about Jorgensen’s decisive strike, he added: ‘We did not defend well for that. There are going to be miracle lads who can produce something out of nothing but the way we defend, we should be taking so much time and space away from them that even if they do get it out there, we can cover.
‘Essentially, we want to keep them on the other side of the gainline but if they do get it to an edge, then we recognise that and can recover so they don’t actually go anywhere.
‘I think it was the combination of a lot of things. We had too many people on the short side. We could have definitely pushed a few more numbers to help out those edge guys, making those big reads. I think we just caught short and that was it really.’
Reigning champions South Africa will provide an even greater test for England’s defence
So, what is wrong with England’s defence? ‘I’d say there’s a bit of tentativeness,’ said Freeman. ‘You want to get off the line and there’s potentially that hesitation. I don’t think there’s too much we’re doing wrong.
‘Yes, we’re conceding, but a lot of that has come off our transition. As soon as we can stop them transition attacking against us, we’ll look strong from that.’
England will always face the difficulty of reintegrating players from several different clubs and uniting in their own systems, at short notice. But they are far from alone in having that challenge to overcome – and Freeman admitted that there was time and scope to make it work.
‘It is difficult,’ he added. ‘Adjusting (from club to country) is the tough part. Obviously, we have the week in Girona (training camp) to get that right. It is difficult, but once we’re all on the same page it’s actually not that hard. We know we want to be aggressive off the line. As long as we know what’s happening outside of us, that’s what’s key.’
Maro Itoje struck a similar tone after last Saturday’s shattering loss. England are now trying to move on from the all-too-brief period of working with Felix Jones – who had established such a global reputation as a supreme defence specialist.
But they don’t want to abandon the principles he tried to instill in them, about turning high-intensity defence as an imposing weapon in its own right.
‘We just didn’t defend probably as aggressively and consistently as we needed to,’ said England vice-captain Itoje, after Jorgensen snatched the spoils for the Wallabies. ‘We shouldn’t concede a try from 45 metres out. We need to defend better and close out games.
‘Ultimately, in those scenarios, we want to be the aggressors. We want to be getting off the line. I definitely think we need to be more aggressive. And we need to be more joined-up.’
