By Keith Jenner
May 5 2004

It didn't surprise me that England failed to win the Grand Slam, or even just the Six Nations this year. Playing France in Paris is never easy and we should remember that in the same fixture two years ago, France won the game quite convincingly. Losing to Ireland at Twickenham was more of a surprise though. Ireland are always dangerous, but I felt that England should have their measure at home and wasn't expecting the result. However, it was always possible that England would trip up at some point and, whilst most of the press had decided that as England were world champions they were invincible, that was never going to be the case.

There are a number of reasons why England didn't play as well as many expected in this years Six Nations, and they were both quite easy to predict. Firstly, there was the loss of key players and I will go into that in more detail later. Perhaps more important was the loss of motivation that I believe was inevitable.

Personally, I don't believe that England won the World Cup because they had the best players or coaching team (although obviously they couldn't have done it without a good squad and supporting set-up). For me, the major difference between England and the other semi finalists was that we wanted it more than they did. The six nations disappointments over the past few years may have hurt at the time but I'm not sure that we would have won the World Cup without them. At the beginning of 2003, England were still being criticised for having not actually won anything of note during Clive Woodward's time in charge and that helped them focus better. They knew it was their last chance to get things right before the squad broke up and as a result they managed to come through the tough matches, even when things weren't going as well as they could have on the field.

But now we have won the World Cup and that hunger has gone. In its place was more incentive for the other nations to raise their game against the World Champions, so the result at Twickenham against Ireland wasn't as much of a surprise as it seemed at the time.

Perhaps we would have got away with it in the Six Nations if we hadn't been missing some key players. The press have focussed on the absence of Martin Johnson and Jonny Wilkinson, and they have certainly been missed. Johnson's captaincy was one of the highlights of the World Cup and there has been evidence in previous seasons of how England suffer when he isn't there. There are some questions over Lawrence Dalaglio's suitability as his replacement, but that is possibly rather harsh as he had quite an act to follow. I suspect that things may have been different had Johnson been leading the team this year.

I'm not so sure that Jonny Wilkinson's absence made much difference though. I believe that Wilkinson is one of the worlds best players, but his replacements did a pretty good job, and I think we would have still lost those two games with or without him.

There is one player that I do believe that England miss in some games, and I think that Clive Woodward has made mistakes in the past few seasons by not using him as much as he should have. I'm talking about Jason Leonard of course. Maybe I'm being biased, but I believe that at times, when things aren't going quite to plan, he is just the man to help steady the ship. That is something that England haven't been able to do at times.

I know that many people agree with me that England would probably have won the World Cup final in normal time had Jason started the game, or been brought on earlier than he was. One of Clive Woodward's biggest weaknesses in my opinion is that he is often slow to change things when Plan A isn't working. People used to criticise England for not having a plan B, but I think that it has always been there, but we sometimes don't use it until it is too late.

The fashion these days is to have a very mobile front row who can join the attack and can run with the ball themselves. England particularly have tried to play a style of Rugby where each player can play in any position, and at times this works very effectively. When it has worked, England have looked as good as any team I have ever seen.

Unfortunately, sometimes it doesn't work, and when that happens things can start to look very ragged. As I saw it, this years Six Nations was the time that this tactic really backfired on England, with players appearing out of position all over the field and proving that the best person to do any job is the specialist. Maybe a front row or wing can play scrum half, but he's never going to be as effective there as Matt Dawson is, for example. If Dawson is trapped at the bottom of a pile of bodies then someone else will have to take his place, but I can't see the logic to having Dawson standing down the line whilst Ben Cohen digs the ball out.

Probably the worst example of England players being out of position was in the World Cup quarter final against Wales when Mike Tindell kicked the ball towards the corner for the player on the wing to chase. I assume that he believed the player was Cohen or Lewsey, but instead it was a Lock and, when the Welsh wing gathered the ball he had almost a free run to the try line.

I also wonder whether this style of play sometimes detracts from players abilities to perform their basic tasks properly. Maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect that the fact that England's line out fell apart so spectacularly against Ireland may have had something to do with the fact that the players weren't concentrating on doing the basics right. If things aren't going well then you need to try to steady things by playing solid, unfussy, steady rugby. Wildly flinging the ball down the line, from Lock to Hooker to Prop, whilst the world's best centre watches on without getting his hands on the ball isn't going to help at all.

Probably the most important passage of play in England Rugby history was that leading up to Jonny Wilkinson's winning drop goal at the World Cup final. At one point during the move, after Matt Dawson had made his break and was buried under a pile of bodies, Neil Back moved into the Scrum Half position and was looking at his options. He could have passed to Wilkinson, but Martin Johnson was on hand to take the ball on and give Dawson the opportunity to make get back into position and make the pass. I'm not sure what would have happened had Johnson not been there, but the only other player on the field I would have been confident of making the right decision was Jason Leonard. They are both gone now.

I think that Clive Woodward will miss Jason Leonard in the future, as I believe that England have missed him on a number of occasions in the past. In the World Cup final, we needed his steadying influence in the front row far earlier than he actually arrived. In this years six nations we needed him to help steady things at the breakdown. In the future we will need a player like him, and I'm not sure who that player is. Let's hope we find one soon.