Much has been written about England's match against Australia last
weekend, some of the articles focus on the positives and the fact that England
have started this 2013 QBE International Series with a win whilst others are fairly negative citing England's performance
as terrible. Personally I thought that
the most surprising headline was from Sir Clive Woodwood; "That was one of
the worst 40 minutes I've seen at Twickenham... England must step on the gas if
they are to set the world alight". Now far from me to argue with one of the greatest England coaches in
recent history however from where I was sat in Twickenham HQ the first 40 didn’t seem to
be quite that bad? Yes, England didn’t set the world on fire however they were still
very much in the game at half time.
Now that the dust has settled and the team are back in camp, the build up towards Saturday is well under way and it is the certainly the right time to do a little post-match and pre-match analysis.
England have always been known to be forward dominated and
particularly strong at scrum time… without the presence of Alex Corbisiero at
loosehead many worried that our scrum would be a little under-par however a
certain Mako Vunipola stepped up and ensured that it wasn’t! Great work Mako! However on Saturday the scrum wasn’t
the only string to our fowards' bow as defensively they were huge. As the England analysts' stats show our pack did not miss a
single tackle during the 80 minutes, 79 tackles attempted and 79 tackles
completed. Not only that but our forwards all had phenomenal work-rates; in just 26
minutes Joe Launchbury hit 30 rucks, Tom Wood 25 and Dan Cole 22. We know that the Argentinians' are a
physical bunch who like to play their rugby up front, so this weekend will be a
great test to see if this was just a 'one hit wonder' or whether England can
continue to deliver this level of forward dominance and work-rate week in, week out.
Another HUGE, HUGE, positive that deserves the capital letters and every
single positive adjective that you can think of is the performance of Mr Mike
Brown. Man of the Match by a country mile and in one single performance he smashed the image that many England fans had of him which was that he was a solid, boring full-back who didn't do anything. He carried the ball further
than any other player on the field with 125 metres made and managed to outshine Israel Folau, something which many people believed was impossible to do.
On the flip side the centre partnership didn’t really gel or produce
the X Factor that it was billed too… Billy Twelvetrees is certainly bearing
the brunt of the criticism as his mistakes were clear for all to see.
Joe Tomkins didn't really get into the game or do too much with the ball that he did get. Therefore it is unsurprising that since the final whistle many have called for Luther Burrell to come into the XV and spice things up. He is a big hitter, a big ball carrier and now a mature player. Hearing Stuart today it appears that this is unlikely to happen and that he will
give Billy another chance this weekend. Do I think that this is the right call? Well in a
nutshell, no!!
Another area that didn’t quite fire on all four cylinders was the line
out and Stuart could choose to make wholesale changes or minimal changes in
this area; Dylan Hartley, Tom Youngs, Tom Wood, Geoff Parling and Courtney Lawes are all
in the mix and again it depends on whether Stuart wants to develop consistency or see if there is a better option available to him through making some changes.
Clearly Saturday’s fixture isn’t all about one team, Argentina will be
our opponents and what do we know about them? Well firstly they have a new coach
who has been in place for all of 5 days which is not exactly the ideal amount of preparation
time however that’s life!! Not only that but rumours are rife that there are divisions and rifts within
the squad and they have recently lost some of their biggest players; Juan Martin Fernández
Lobbe and Juan Martin Hernandez to injury and Felipe Contepomi to retirement, so they certainly haven't had the best run up to this fixture! Given the short amount of time with Daniel Hourcade you suspect that
Argentina will go back to basics with their game plan and do what they always
do… muscle up front and try to grind out a win. There is no doubt that Argentina have improved since their inclusion into the Rugby Championship, they have had to learn things the hard way and the trajectory of Argentinian rugby is on the up.
Do I believe that Argentina will beat England this Saturday at Twickenham? No. However I do think that it will be a contest, at least for some of the game, despite the Argentinean set backs that I've spoken about. Following last weekend’s win Chris Robshaw says that his England squad now truly
have the belief that they can compete with the big boys of world rugby, and to that I think we all say thank goodness!!! As usual Stuart will announce his extended squad match today and then the staring XV on Thursday lunchtime. For the first time in a while there are no huge injury concerns, personally I don’t
think that there will be widespread changes, not in the 23 and I doubt in the
XV either. Regardless of who starts the most important thing is that England continue
on that belief and gain another significant victory.
