Reviewing Week 1: England defeat about more than Ford kicks

In four of the last five matches, England have suffered four defeats by a deficit of 12 points. On Saturday against the All Blacks, it was inches: the New Zealand upright stopped George Ford’s 78th minute penalty. Two minutes later, his drop-goal slid a couple of metres wide with the last kick of the game. New Zealand won 24-22, while England suffered yet another narrow, heart-breaking defeat.

“I don’t know how many we can lose in the dying embers,” Ben Earl said afterwards. Small margins.

The focus will be on those dramatic final scenes, but behind an inch of a kick being successful are hundreds of moments leading there.

You can look at Ben Earl’s no-arms tackle on Pasilio Tosi in the 66th minute which gave the All Blacks a chance to cut England’s 22-14 lead to just five points. Earl was guilty of a similar offence in Lyon in March which contributed to France’s Thomas Ramos kicking a last-gasp penalty to beat England 33-31. “That should’ve been addressed so you never, ever do that ever again,” England’s World Cup-winning scrum-half Matt Dawson said on the BBC.

There was the call from Steve Borthwick to bring on Ford — who last played on Sept. 28 and suffered a quad injury — with 18 minutes left for Marcus Smith, who was judging the rhythm of the match well. Ford then had the penalty with two minutes left which he would normally make. Then came the scrum off Henry Slade tackling Patrick Tuipulotu under the All Blacks’ posts after the ball ricochetted down into the mixer. Off the following scrum, England’s reserve front-row had already looked a little unstable compared to the starters and struggled again. Harry Randall rushed the pass, but it needed Alex Dombrandt to take the ball back into the mix so England could reset. After being repelled back, England had lost 10 or so metres on Ford’s range. Eventually Randall’s pass was “terrible under pressure,” according to Dawson, and Ford’s attempt sailed wild.

“We’re all human and people miss,” Smith said.

“I think there are a few players in the side who are going into repetition, and they need to get out of that habit of making tiny errors in big pressure matches as that adds up to a one or two-point defeat,” Dawson said.

Afterwards, Borthwick was asked whether he was concerned these narrow defeats are now psychological. “No,” he responded, keen to brush such thoughts away. “I’m quite clear I want to make sure we don’t have to come down to those margins,” he later said. “But it shows we’re a good team and we need to be better.”

For the players themselves, they echoed Borthwick’s sentiments. “We’re not getting it as of late but I think we are very close,” Maro Itoje said. “I think as a team once we get a bit wiser in finishing off these games I think we will grow and grow and grow. The key thing for is us to do that quicker rather than later.”

Itoje says they need to be more “robust,” Smith believes they will learn from these pressure “scenarios.” Either way, this needs to be the outlier rather than the norm.

There are plenty of decent teams in sport to learn this trait from, like Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United treble-winning team, or even the Springboks in last year’s men’s World Cup as they won all three knockout matches by a single point. Then there are their recent foes, the All Blacks. “We’ve been in the same position and you don’t want to go into your shell, you know what I mean?” Tele’a said. “Just sticking to what our coaches have built with us and made us focus on and we’re a dangerous side when we can play and keep the ball alive.”

There was also the timely reminder of what they aspire to emulate, with the 2003 England squad on the pitch at half-time. That glorious spectre of success still hangs over any and every men’s team since.

England now have Australia in a week. Borthwick’s side are favourites, and they will be looking to avoid yet another painful, late defeat. You sense England are on the verge of being a very good side. But they have to find a way to grow into the final quarter of matches, rather than be forced back into their shell. The belief is there, but results are essential

“We will get there,” Itoje said. “We have to lick our wounds and take our medicine at the moment but this team is building in a positive direction. Sometimes in the past when we lost, we were clutching at straws. I don’t feel we are clutching at straws. We lost but we’re close.”

Northern hemisphere learns about Wallace Sititi

Those in New Zealand and who watched the Rugby Championship will know full well the talent of Wallace Sititi. But at the Allianz Stadium on Saturday, Sititi had the game in the palm of his hand.

The 22-year-old blindside was magnificent against England and is surely a shoe-in for World Rugby’s Breakthrough Player of the Year award. In a game of fine margins, and tight quarters, he had the skillset to open things up, breaking the line with 16 carries for 141 metres, and throwing the brilliantly audacious offload for Mark Tele’a’s opening try after just eight minutes.

“I’d say it was instinctive — but it was a good finish from Mark. He deserves the credit,” Sititi said. Tele’a loves playing off Sititi’s shoulder. “He’s just playing his rugby, you know what I mean?” Tele’a said. “And you’ve got confidence like that and the boys just building him up, it’s going to be hard to stop. So we’re just staying alive around him and I guess that’s the most important thing.”

Given he only made his Chiefs debut this year, Sititi is your archetypal rugby wonderkid, and he has the world at his feet — or in his hands. “It’s about being grateful for whatever happens, making sure I get my prep right throughout the week and whatever happens at the weekend I am ready for it,” he said.

The comparisons with Ardie Savea are inevitable, but he has the perfect mentor alongside him in the back-row. “He’s found what works for him and he’s playing great footy and that’s a testament to himself and his preparation and the level-headedness, the calmness he has,” Savea said.

Sititi was named player of the match, and with that, came a bottle of champagne. “I’m not sure what he’s going to do with that,” Scott Robertson said. As it turns out, while Sititi was speaking to the media, his teammates had already toasted his success. “I think some of the boys have already had that out and are drinking it,” Sititi said. There’ll be plenty more for him to enjoy.

Joe Marler exits as one-of-a kind

Joe Marler has retired from England duty before, but this one has an air of finality about it. Both in 2018 and 2020 he was persuaded back from the international wilderness for another crack, but after calling it quits on the Sunday before the All Blacks Test week, this one is the final full stop.

Marler’s 95 caps are as much a testament to his ability as it is his own endurance. While he has been a destructive loose-head, he has also had to manage his own self-doubt. He has not always found it easy to be away from home and has been open about his mental health struggles. He is a busy man these days, mixing a successful podcast with being dad to his four children, husband to Daisy and also having his face shoved in rugby’s coalface with Harlequins and England.

“I can’t do what I used to do as well as I once could. I can’t keep talking about my family being my priority unless they actually are,” he said when announcing his decision.

You expect this will be his final season in the sport. Enjoy him on the pitch while you can.

Darcy Graham puts down marker in Lions year

It was an impressive performance from Scotland against Fiji, complete with a brilliant piece of skill from Adam Hastings, but bigger tests await them.

There are caveats around their 57-17 win over Fiji. This was a Scotland team without their overseas contingent; Fiji were also essentially the Fijian Drua side. But this will be remembered for Darcy Graham’s return to the Test fold, having last featured over a year ago, as he scored four of Scotland’s eight tries.

“I walked onto the field with Darcy, the pitch felt pretty good and I said, ‘this is your playground,’ because every time we play at Murrayfield, Darcy is going crazy and he did again today,” Scotland captain Sione Tuipulotu said.

There were periods of the match where Scotland’s intensity fell off, their discipline falling apart, allowing Fiji back into the game, but this was a case of job done for Gregor Townsend. Hastings sent a timely reminder of his skillset, having taken on the fly-half role from Finn Russell for this match and his offload for Duhan van der Merwe’s try in the 71st minute is worth the countless re-runs it will receive.

Van der Merwe now sits at the top of Scotland men’s try-scoring tally with 29, just one ahead of Graham.

“It’s fantastic that we’re living this history where we have two players with a lot of rugby ahead of them that are setting try-scoring records,” Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend said. “Ian Smith from 1924 to 1933 held that record for so many years [with 24 tries] and now it is being broken every game or every other game those two are playing.”

However, with the Springboks lying in wait, next Sunday will provide a true gauge of where Scotland are at.

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