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England’s 6 Nations – Almost Half Way

Here's Johnny
By Loosehead
February 11 2007
Short of rushing an article out at half time during the Ireland v England game, this is the closest to a half time review. England are looking more positive, and the feel is better. This is likely to be due to relief more than anything else.
Relief that the performances were not as abject as those before Christmas.

The euphoria after the victory over Scotland was mis-placed, although understandably so. The Twickenham faithful were relieved to see a performance that a)was victorious and b) showed that England can indeed play proper rugby. The forwards, playing in their normal club positions, provided the sort of platform that half packs dream of. Ellis at scrum half gave a man of the match performance, which sadly was not duly recognised as such due to the (at the time) controversial early return of St Johnny of Wilko. Both half backs were allowed to have a good time by a rather inept Scottish backrow, who didn’t really see the point of defending around the fringes or putting pressure on the fly half.

Criticisms of the Andy Robinson era were everywhere by implication. Ellis went from backwater direct into the starting 15. Jason Robinson made himself available for selection, and shows his old scoring hunger. Forwards are played in their own positions and look like they enjoy it. In particular, Joe Worsely is being played as Joe Worsely and not as a ersatz Richard Hill, and was able to shine.

There was still an air of something lacking. Farrell despite the hype is drifting into a non-role of sort-of fly half. There is a justification of his inclusion which uses the new position of first receiver. I have yet to track this one down.

In the Italy game England demonstrated how easy it is to go backwards. No section of the team worked to any acceptable degree of adequacy. Our old friend “selection issues” came to visit. The second row was fairly anonymous, which is staggering given the talents in English clubs – at Wasps we have Simon Shaw and Tom Palmer. That would have been a far stronger, dynamic and in short better second row, and that’s going no further than looking at our own.

The Wilko – Farrell shuffle, where Wilko drops out of fly half and goes to outside centre, Farrell and Tindall shuffle in so Farrell is “first receiver” (stunningly similar to the fly half position), does not work. What is the point of taking someone who is new to the game and pretending he will magically run an international game? Meanwhile the reputed best fly half is shoved out of the way towards the wing. Farrell made no runs, and created nothing. Nothing, that is except a pop pass to cut open the defence. This was in open play when he was playing at centre, rather than the mid-field general. Farrell should go back to Sarries and carry on learning the game.

Balshaw. Underpowered, underskilled, underignored.


The main thing about the forwards learned was that there is no replacement for Joe Worsely. We still have committed physical lumps, but a lack of dynamism. The injury to Dan Ward Smith in a club game just before international selection leaves an awful lot of people saying “if only”. We shall have to wait and see.

So, a quick summary: better but not exactly world class. Two unconvincing victories over lesser opposition. Sterner tests are yet to come, starting at Croake Park in a fortnight.

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