Jeff Probyn: Progress? Surely not if we are still relying on Manu Tuilagi

Hype, hope and more than a little desperation seems to be the recipe for English rugby as Stuart Lancaster plots the future course of his squad. Lancaster’s comments that he feels the team are on track for the World Cup following the win against Australia is hard to understand, let alone believe.
If, as he stated post-match, the coaches had a single-minded approach to the game they wanted the players to play and he thought the players “applied the plan well”, I don’t think he was watching the same game that the rest of the 82,000 spectators were in Twickenham.
Yes, it was a much-needed win that helped boost the confidence of all who want England to have a possible chance of winning next year’s Cup – but that’s all.
England’s game play was limited and stifled and although the forwards totally dominated the opposition they failed to translate that dominance into an attacking game that enabled the backs to launch even a single cohesive attack.
With the dominance that England had up front you would have expected the backs to have had a field day running from everywhere, but that didn’t happen with the England team managing only a third of the number of metres run by the Australians.
Passes, clean breaks, defenders beaten and offloads also failed to live up to the Australian onslaught, in fact, the only areas where England exceeded their counter parts were in the tackle and kicking, where they made three times as many tackles and kicks as the Australians.
What that proves is the old adage there are lies, dammed lies and statistics, is true as England won a game that statistically they lost.
One area where England appeared to dominate was in the scrum, although the stats say the Aussies were better with 5 feeds, 5 won to England 9 feeds, 7 won, but it was the scrum that led to England’s scores.
One thing that puzzled me was the number of penalties that were awarded at the scrum by referee Jerome Garces just because the scrum wheeled, or was forced to retreat. There is nothing in the laws of the game that say the referee must penalise a side because they are driven back or wheeled come scrum time.
Yes, a referee should award a penalty if a side deliberately pulls a scrum on one side or the other, or if they deliberately stand up – but if a dominate prop gains an advantage at a scrum, it will naturally wheel.
A penalty count of 12 and a free kick against the Australians is not something that the coaching team could have factored into the “single mind preparations” because another referee may well have taken the view that it was England who infringed at the scrum by turning their opponents, rather than the other way round. Lancaster’s insistence that the plan was followed would seem to indicate that the backs were told to defend, not attack, and to kick any ball deep into the opposition half relying on the Australians to make mistakes.
The hype that this was a precisely planned game that was executed to perfection seems more than a little far-fetched to me. Yes, it was a game that in the end England deserved to win but there was also a large slice of luck, as at least two Australian attacks failed because of poor accuracy in the final pass.
Looking forward, Lancaster seems to be pinning his hopes on the return to match fitness of Manu Tuilagi as the panacea for all of England’s midfield woes and yet it still remains a mystery which of the myriad of potential partners will actually be chosen.
Injury robbed England of the chance to field a first choice side this autumn but Lancaster has now muddied the waters, first by praising the combinations he has put out and then more or less indicating that one of them will be dropped in favour of Tuilagi.
Then there is the question of Sam Burgess who after just 17 minutes of Rugby Union and two touches of the ball last week has being touted by Lancaster as an England Saxons player with the possibility that he will be in the Six Nation’s squad in the New Year.
As I have said, Burgess may well be a future England centre or back-row but let’s not make the same mistake that was made with all previous Rugby League converts and that mistake was expecting them to make the transition from League to Union overnight.
The success of Jason Robinson is always referred to when anyone talks of League converts as if he arrived at Sale and was an instant success but that conveniently forgets the time in 1996 that he spent at Bath before returning to League having failed to adapt properly to the Union game.
Even during his early international career Robinson was still learning because as a League player he didn’t have the kicking game needed by a full-back in Union.
Robinson eventually made it and played a vital part in the 2003 World Cup win but that was after he had time to learn and adapt to the Union game.
Every convert since has come with a promise that they will be another Jason Robinson but so far none have made it to his level of success, even Andy Farrell who was rushed unprepared into the England Team disappointed with only eight caps.
Lancaster’s unseemly haste to get Burgess in an England team smacks of desperation, a desperation that might not allow Burgess to learn all he needs to know to reach his full potential.
*This article was first published in The Rugby Paper on December 7.