An old, has-been writes...
There seems to be a notion developing that were England to secure a grand slam by beating Wales at Twickenham and France in Paris in their final two fixtures, it would somehow be less than splendiferously, gob-smackingly, fandabidozi fantastic.
The theory stems from two observations. The first is that England have been lucky in the way that the games have fallen, starting with the weaker teams and then moving on to the bigger challenges, allowing a new coaching team time to bed in. The second is that no one is any good in this season’s RBS Six Nations Championship. Italy are in terminal decline, Scotland have failed to kick on from a World Cup in which their displays were never quite as impressive as many made out, France are a shambles and Ireland have been all but emasculated by a crippling injury list and the retirement of Paul O’Connell. Only Wales — big, brutal, one-dimensional Wales — are an opposition worthy of the name.
Well, I’m here to tell you that premise is utter tosh. There is no such thing as a poor grand slam for England. Never, ever, ever. Under any circumstances. Take out the Carling years, where clean sweeps occurred in 1991, 1992 and 1995, and England have won only two (1980 and 2003) in 58 years of hurt. Since 2003, by the way, a period in which England have notched diddly-squat, there have been six grand slams (three from Wales, two from France and one from Ireland), which makes England’s bare cupboard even more galling.
Grand slams are bloody difficult to win. They require attention to detail, experience, a nucleus of resilient, talented individuals, areas of performance that are capable of repetition and beyond the counteracting reach of opposition teams, trust, camaraderie and a large dollop of good fortune. That’s why they don’t happen very often. That combination is notoriously tricky to reproduce home and away over five matches.
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So, if England do get past Wales and France, celebrate the belligerence of Mike Brown, Owen Farrell’s spiky, combative nature, Dan Cole’s obduracy and the cussedness of Chris Robshaw and James Haskell, who continue to hang on to their international places despite offering few of the skills that their peers in other (more assured) international teams demonstrate on a regular basis.
A current observer writes...
God, I’m bored with this wretched Six Nations. After 20 minutes of England’s game against Ireland last Saturday it felt like I was at a large and rather tedious village fête. Twickenham was awash with polite chatter. Nothing more. There was very little sense of drama because all that was on offer was a bunch of big men running into another bunch of big men.
That’s been the theme of England’s campaign. Grab the ball, hang on to it for as long as possible, crash and bash and bump, force the opposition to make a bunch of tackles, then, when they’re out on their feet, bring fresh legs off the bench to take advantage of their fatigue.
Nothing illuminates this approach more brightly than the contributions of Billy Vunipola. Big Billy has been England’s best player by a country mile in two of England’s three games. I admire Big Billy hugely because to win collision after collision against athletes who are equally massive and unyielding is a colossal achievement. But there has to be more to international rugby than that, surely?
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That’s my beef with Eddie Jones, the England head coach. I can put up with all his silly little comments, like how George Ford is actually playing sublime rugby when he clearly isn’t, that Robshaw can be one of the world’s best blind-sides when he clearly can’t, that Jonny Sexton’s parents should be concerned about their son’s physical wellbeing because Jones has always enjoyed mischief-making. That provocative, iconoclastic side to Jones is partly what makes him so interesting.
But what I’m struggling with is Jones’s conservatism and attitude to risk. I get that “attack” is much more difficult to construct than “defence”. I understand that he has only had a relatively short time in which to get to know his players and their abilities.
But, presumably, Jones harbours loftier ambitions than presiding over a group of men who will bust a gut for each other, creating a defence that is difficult to break down and relying on a game plan that prizes relentless attrition over anything else.
It does not take more than a cursory glance at England’s bench against Ireland (Jamie George, Mako Vunipola, Paul Hill, Courtney Lawes, Jack Clifford, Danny Care, Elliot Daly and Alex Goode) to conclude that all bar Lawes are better equipped and more likely to make those game-changing interventions than the men who have been picked to start ahead of them. And Lawes loses out only because on form he offers less than Maro Itoje and George Kruis, two of England’s big successes in the tournament.
It’s as if Jones has seen the future but doesn’t yet trust himself to bring it about, or the players to make it happen.
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An old has-been who is also a current observer writes...
Sod it. It just might be worth two more borefests against Wales and France for England to grab that grand slam, even if that would validate a growing conviction that most professional rugby these days is worth watching only for the final quarter.
Maybe then Jones can set about rebuilding England in earnest, which means pensioning off Cole, Haskell and Robshaw; getting Ben Youngs to do what Danny Care can do and vice versa; finding a way to make Brown as effective in the attacking third of the pitch as he is in the defensive third; persuading Big Billy that he is more than a battering ram; encouraging Ford to operate with greater variety; and coming up with something — anything — to make the start of the game as interesting as the end.