Cast your minds back to England’s first Test against the All Blacks in Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr Stadium in July. Only eight matches ago for Steve Borthwick’s side, but a period of time whereby every England fan has probably aged by 20 years.
England were on the wrong side of a one-point game on that occasion, falling 16-15 to the hosts. Marcus Smith was off-target with three of his five kicks at goal that day, two of which were basic for a kicker of his standard.
It happens from time to time for kickers, but the Harlequin appeared to be having another one of those days at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium in round two of the Guinness Six Nations against France. But on this occasion, he had back-up.
After two similar misses in the final quarter of the match – one to give England the lead and one to close in on France’s winning margin – Marcus decided to hand over the kicking duties to fly-half Fin Smith, who duly converted two tries in the final ten minutes to nudge England ahead of many’s tournament favourites.
Marcus is unlikely to have a kicking game like that any time soon, but he had the fallback option in London which he didn’t have in Dunedin. Fin did play in the final 15 minutes against the All Blacks but by the time he entered the fray, the damage was done and there were no longer any opportunities to kick for England.
But what is most interesting about this decision to change kicking duties was the role captain Maro Itoje had in it, or rather the role he did not have in it.
Speaking after the match, Itoje admitted he had no part to play in that decision.
“I don’t really know to be honest,” when asked about the decision-making process.
“I think they decided that between themselves, I’m not sure how that came about.”
This makes sense. Unless you are John Eales, no lock would adequately know the mechanics of goal-kicking to make a call like that, regardless of how skewed Marcus’ kicks were.
But this private conference between the pair of kickers fixed two issues. The first, and most obvious, is that it solved England’s kicking woes, and as a result, delivered the win.
England’s leadership has been under the spotlight over the past year, with the scrutiny intensifying with every narrow loss they suffered. The topic reared its head in the wake of England’s round one loss to Ireland, with former South Africa captain Jean de Villiers saying Borthwick’s side lacked “cohesiveness and leadership”.
Having the likes of former captain Jamie George and Elliot Daly on the bench against Les Bleus certainly helped, and Borthwick was quick to highlight that after the match.
Great teams have plenty of leaders across the squad, it is not just down to the captain. The very fact that this kick-change choice was not influenced by Itoje shows a huge stride in the right direction. Leaders are emerging elsewhere in the squad, even if it was a 22-year-old in his first Test start. His head coach was acutely aware of that as well, praising his “great composure” after the match.
It is no coincidence that when England made a fundamental change like that, they came away with the win. Who took charge out of Marcus and Fin is unknown, and irrelevant, but it was a match-winning decision.
‘Responsibility’, ‘accountability’ and ‘ownership’ are buzzwords that are frequently thrown around in professional sport, and that is something many might think happens behind closed doors. This happened live in front of 82,000 people and millions of viewers.
It seemed obvious at the time after two frankly ugly kicks from the Harlequin, but this was a decision the match hinged on, and the type England have made a habit of getting wrong over the past year.
