The visitors’ showing when it dried up at Twickenham will give hope to Scotland when Eddie Jones’s side visit Murrayfield
Cory Hill of Wales attempts to block a kick from England’s Owen Farrell during the sides’ close battle at Twickenham.
Photograph: Tim Williams/Action Plus via Getty Images
If it rains for the next five weeks, England will be crowned Six Nations champions because Eddie Jones’s side have once again demonstrated they are the best wet-weather team in the world at the moment.
As seen against Wales, England had a plan and they executed it perfectly. What impressed me most was how the half-backs – and I include Owen Farrell in that – dropped those kicks in behind the wings and just showed far superior tactical awareness than their opposite numbers throughout.
Even though Wales got back to within six points, England stayed true to their game-plan and kept the ball right down in their opponents’ half.
Someone I was watching the game with asked me how Wales would respond and I said: “I bet you they’ll still keep hold of the ball from deep,” because that’s all Wales know. The problem, though, is that England didn’t actually want the ball, they were happy for Wales to have it and tackle them in the right areas of the field and say: “If you go 85 metres and score a try then fair play but we’re going to back ourselves to stop you.”
It was a masterclass and, if you have half-backs who can control the game like England do, it gives the rest of the team a complete picture of what they need to do. The application of the game plan delivered by the half-backs breeds confidence that the rest of the team feed off.
England know what they need to do and what they are able to do in poor conditions. They have the defence, they have got the backfield coverage, they’re good under the high ball if teams do kick, they’ve got the set-piece to really squeeze and get that momentum and put teams back in their own half. They’ll back themselves to win that territory game all day long.
England knew that Wales could not get out of their own half and with Rhys Patchell and Gareth Anscombe, rather than players with better kicking games such as Dan Biggar and Leigh Halfpenny, England plugged them in and put the squeeze on. It was a fantastic demonstration of some of the astute tactical kicking we have seen so far in this competition and, while it’s certainly not a new tactic, I do think we’re seeing more of it.
You might think of George Ford as an attacking player but it’s very disciplined of him to sit in the pocket and choose those kicking options. You only have to compare and contrast him with Finn Russell and his performance against France. Russell is such an instinctive type of player who wants to attack all the time but you also need that awareness to start looking for that territory and start playing the long game a little bit more. When Greig Laidlaw moved to fly-half late on, the ball was played down in French territory far more, mistakes started to happen and Scotland nudged ahead. All of a sudden France were chasing the game and imploded.
Ireland can be similarly effective – just look at the quality of half-backs they have in Conor Murray and Johnny Sexton – but as a complete package in wet weather rugby England are at the top of the game. Still, while the injury to Robbie Henshaw is a dark cloud for Ireland, Joe Schmidt will be happy with two wins out of two, and their attacking game seemed to step up against Italy. Already we’re looking to England v Ireland at Twickenham on the last day of the competition but the way Wales finished the game on Saturday will give Scotland hope as they prepare for England’s visit.
When it dried up a little bit and Wales started to move the point of contact, with the tight five tipping the ball on to the second runner and creating a little bit of a fracture in the defensive line, we saw that England can be vulnerable.
And having said how good England are in the rain, I’d love for it to be a dry day at Murrayfield. Scotland have some demons from what happened at Twickenham last year and I’m really hoping to see that Scottish attacking prowess in full swing. If the heavens open, though, put your money on England.