Building for a brighter future
PAUL REES LOOKS AT WHAT WENT RIGHTAND WHAT WENT WRONGFOR THE TOURING HOME NATIONS
After Wales had lost the second Test, and the rubber, to Australia in Melbourne last weekend, Warren Gatland predicted that a side that had lost its ninth successive international would soon come good and be one well worth avoiding in the 2027 World Cup.
Wales’s head coach, on an unfamiliar losing streak, could hardly have been expected to say anything else, and two years after the record number of 10 defeats ended in 2003, they won the Grand Slam. But when compared to the series in South Africa and New Zealand, it was the Challenge Cup rather than the Champions Cup with both sides low down in the world rankings and showing why.
Wales were below strength and had the stand-out player in the two matches in hooker and captain Dewi Lake, but it was a contest between two teams who had mislaid the knack of winning. Australia twice held on, succeeding despite themselves rather than any superiority.
Australia’s head coach Joe Schmidt well knew the size of the task he had taken on after last year’s shambolic World Cup campaign that saw the Wallabies exit the tournament at the group stage for the first time, but if he had hoped for a few surprises as he rummaged through the cupboards, he was disappointed.
The Lions will be in Australia in a year’s time. The last time they toured there was in 2013, under Gatland, when Wales were the Six Nations champions, retaining the title after winning the Grand Slam the previous year. The bulk of that side formed the core of the Test team, but were the tour taking place now they would have few contenders.
It shows where Gatland is having to come from in his second spell in charge. In his first stint, he was able to override the problems Wales had at regional level, not least because he had a crop of outstanding backs and forwards who grew every time Wales went into camp and become a real collective, but he is having to rebuild with players who have barely made a mark on the club scene.
Bath’s Archie Griffin started both Tests against Australia at tight-head prop and was on the field for all bar 13 minutes of the series. He turns 23 on Wednesday but has only made one start for Bath in the last two seasons, against the Cornish Pirates back in September, making nine appearances off the bench in the Premiership with Will Stuart and Thomas du Toit ahead of him.
Another Bath player, Regan Grace, below, went on the tour despite never having started a match in rugby union following his switch from league. It sums up the task facing Gatland, and while his track record makes it likely that Wales emerge from their slump to become a team not to be taken for granted, there are sides he will not want to be drawn against in the World Cup.
England were fairly evenly matched. Both went to the Only last year, Wales and World Cup unburdened by expectation and fortunate to be on the side of the draw that would not expose them to the world’s top four ranked sides until the semi-finals, but since then the teams have moved in different directions.
England returned home from New Zealand disappointed, but not deflated, after two narrow defeats to the All Blacks. They were not behind at the interval in either, but did not score in the final 33 minutes in Dunedin or Auckland as the demands of a season which started with World Cup training camps more than 12 months before caught up with them.
Ireland came back in the final minutes against South Africa in Durban last weekend to tie a fiercely contested series, but their players benefit from central contracts which allows their appearances to be dictated by the national coach and they enjoyed more rest after the World Cup than their English counter-parts.
The new deal between he Premiership and the Rugby Football Union will give the England head coach Steve Borthwick more of a say in the management of his squad, but not how often they appear for clubs or in which position. It be otherwise with relegation on back on the menu, a hazard the Irish provinces do not have to confront.
If Wales lost a crop of battle hardened Lions almost all at once such as Alun Wyn Jones, Leigh Halfpenny, Jonathan Davies, Justin Tipuric, Dan Biggar, Louis Rees-Zammit, George North and Ken Owens, England have had to replace Courtney Lawes, Jonny May, Owen Farrell, the Vunipola brothers, Manu Tuilagi, Jack Willis, Danny Care and Ben Youngs.
And Ireland were missing their World Cup players Hugo Keenan, Mack Hansen, Bundee Aki, Johnny Sexton, Jamison Gibson-Park, Dan Sheehan and Jack Conan in the second Test against South Africa yet still outplayed the World Cup holders.
England in New Zealand were almost unrecognisable from the side that ground their way to the World Cup semi-final. There has been an infusion of new blood with Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, Tommy Freeman, Fin Baxter, Chandler Cunningham-South and Ollie Sleightholme all suggesting they are in the squad for the long-ter m, and as the line-up has changed so has the style of play.
England matched New Zealand for tries in both Tests, undone in the first by missed penalties and in the second by the boot of Damian McKenzie as fatigue induced indiscipline kicked in. The All Blacks, under new management, had to dig deep but all through time have tended to find a way.
“I think it is a good English side which is improving with every Test match,” said the former New Zealand scrum-half Justin Marshall, below, who is now a television commentator. “They have basically thrown the kitchen sink at a new gameplan.
“Having new generals helps that. Alex Mitchell is growing into a very good nine and Marcus Smith plays very differently to Owen Farrell. They have some genuine firepower on the wing with Feyi-Waboso absolutely outstanding. They missed George Furbank from the previous week but when you think of some the players they have off the back of a very good tight five, they were getting better and better.
“They will be more than a handful again at Twickenham later this year. We have got to pay tribute to them and if they were playing Australia or South Africa on a souther n hemisphere tour, I think both of them would have had their challenges against this side.”
If there was little to separate New Zealand and England, there was even less between South Africa and Ireland in a heavyweight series. The Springboks remain top of the world rankings but by less than a percentage point after their comeback in Durban was thwarted by two drop goals from replacement outside-half Ciaran Frawley.
It was only nine months ago that a question facing Ireland was how they would replace Sexton. They have started to resemble the New Zealand of old, able to seamlessly replace even those players who were considered to be nigh on indispensable, and to tie a series in South Africa, where they had only before won one Test, without Sexton and Gibson-Park was testament to the force they have become under Andy Farrell.
South Africa started the first Test strongly but found themselves in retreat in the opening period last weekend. Their policy of selecting at least six forwards on the bench worked for them in the last two World Cups, but it backfired in Durban when Willie le Roux was concussed in the fourth minute and on came the raw but promising Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, a versatile player whose preferred position is outside-half.
The Springboks failed to score a try with head coach Rassie Erasmus, above, admitting: “When Willie is there our attack functions a bit better. Sacha definitely brings something different to the game, individual brilliance and he certainly didn’t look out of his place only playing his third game.
“Willie has a vision and a feel for the game. He is maybe not the youngest and the fastest anymore but he is definitely somebody who links the two wings and the centres very well. I will say the experience that Sacha gained against a team which is really well organised and has been ranked in the top one or two in the world the last couple of years, he will use going forward.”
Ireland and England meet on the opening weekend of next year’s Six Nations with France travelling to Twickenham the following weekend. The schedule sees Borthwick’s side face the teams in sequence as they finished in last year’s table, with the champions first and the bottom side, Wales, last.
It was almost the opposite this year with Italy’s and Wales first and Ireland and France last. It suited a side that was taking its first steps in a new era but the task now is to replace France as Ireland’s main challengers, which among other things will mean ending the losing streak against Scotland.
France sent a largely reserve squad to South America where they played two Tests against Argentina and an uncapped match against Uruguay. They drew the series against the Pumas, but the tour was rocked by scandal. The full-back Melvyn Jaminet was suspended and sent home the day after the first Test victory for a racist post he put on social media.
Two days later, forwards Oscar Jegou and Hugo Auradou, who started that match, were arrested by police in Mendoza over an alleged sexual assault and charged with aggravated rape.
“I have never experienced anything like it,” said former Bristol centre Antoine Frisch, above, one of seven debutants in the first Test. “It was very difficult emotionally, psychologically and mentally. It was a collective trauma and made preparing for the second Test very complicated. It had a real impact on our preparation.”
France lost after recovering from an 11-point deficit at the break and there is pressure on head coach Fabien Galthie who a year ago was preparing for the World Cup his union was hosting with expectation on his side. They failed to make the last four and then lost at home to Ireland at the start of the Six Nations before drawing against Italy in Lille.
They will return to Stade de France in the autumn after going on the road in the Six Nations because of the Olympics. They start with Japan and end with a decider against Argentina. In between lie New Zealand whose last visit to Paris saw them lose to Les Bleus 27-13 in the opening match of last year’s World Cup.
Only six of the side that started that evening took the field against England last weekend. With a new head coach at the helm, the All Blacks will evolve, but they are not starting from a low position. They thought their way through the difficulties posed by England and one of the absorbing features of the second Test was how the two sides targeted areas of supposed strength in the opposition.
The All Blacks went after England in the scrums and won penalties while Borthwick’s men sabotaged the home lineout and used defensive blitzing to suffocate New Zealand’s attack and it was when attacking from deep following a kick or a turnover that last year’s beaten World Cup finalists looked most threatening.
England were left with mixed feelings: they pushed New Zealand all the way but lost two close encounters having been ahead at the point when benches come into play and the deal is clinched.
Borthwick has pinpointed tight-head prop as the area that needs reinforcing. Dan Cole is still chugging on at the age of 37 and Will Stuart, who started both Tests and struggled against the unorthodox and suspect technique of Ethan de Groot, is not a guaranteed starter at Bath.
Kyle Sinckler is not available having left Bristol for Toulon and Will Collier will also be playing in the Top 14 next season, leaving Joe Heyes and Trevor Davison as options with Asher Opoku-Fordjour, right, who plays at tight-head for Sale but loose-head for England Under-20s, Afolabi Fasogbon and Billy Sela as the emerging contenders. England’s attack will also be worked on. Their two tries at Eden Park came from Marcus Smith cross-kicks to the right wing, but they struggled putting the ball through hands. The midfield combination of Ollie Lawrence and Henry Slade has helped deliver the blitz defence, but it means England do not contain the threat of an outside break at 13.
It was a lack that George Furbank compensated for at full-back, but he was injured last weekend. Freddie Steward returned but to a different England to when he surged on to the international scene and won man of the match awards for his brilliance under the high ball and downright defiance.
England have moved on and they missed Furbank’s instant acceleration: when he left the field early against France at the end of the Six Nations, Marcus Smith replaced him in a more complementary change than last week.
Tommy Freeman is an option at 13, as is Lawrence, although that would mean finding another 12 at a time when most Test players in the position are imposing rather than second-fives. Ollie Sleightholme’s cameo off the bench in Auckland, when he became the sixth Northampton back to be capped by Borthwick this year, set him up for a starting opportunity in November.
While England and Ireland were tussling with the best in the south, Scotland’s journeys took them to north and South America and two Tests in each, the final one against Uruguay in Montevideo on Saturday. Head coach Gregor Townsend has taken the opportunity to look at his undercard after another season when Scotland put the cup to their lips without managing a swig.
Given where Ireland are, France have been, England are heading towards and Scotland’s resolve to gain ground, Gatland’s task with Wales looks all the more formidable. Improvement alone will not be enough because even with it they could fall further behind.
It does not seem that long ago that so lacking were Ireland and Wales that there were calls for England and France to be parachuted out of the Six Nations and dropped into a tournament with the south’s big three.
It is Ireland who are taking it to them now, drawing a series in South Africa two years after clinching one in New Zealand. Andy Farrell continues to make history and to look at England today is to see Ireland three years ago, starting cautiously and gradually before shrugging off growing pains and developing into a team capable of taking on anyone.
England are not there yet but Borthwick, in the same focused but driven manner of Farrell, two men prepared to delegate and not set in their ways, has restored respect. The next step is to harness the pain felt this month, fine-tune the attack and turn narrow defeats into victories.
