Ten minutes left to play in Marseille, and the game is slipping away from England, taking with it their improbable shot at winning this World Cup. They had been 14 points up just moments ago and the Stade Vélodrome was so quiet in those moments that the crowd were throwing Mexican waves. It would have been stretching the point to say you could hear a pin drop, but if you strained your ears you could hear the bones pop and the bodies flop. Then Fiji finally started to play the way only they can. In six minutes they broke the line twice and scored tries both times, 24-10 became 24-22.
The English didn’t stop to watch the conversion. They were in the one place no team want to be when there’s 10 minutes left to play, when you’re only two points up and the semi-finals are on the line. In a huddle under their own posts. Maro Itoje was there first, and already calling his exhausted teammates in to join him. Courtney Lawes was last to arrive and when he had made it Itoje pressed his finger to his lips and told everyone to shut up as Owen Farrell stepped forward. Away by the 22, Simione Kuruvoli was lining up his kick, while Farrell was talking, quietly, calmly, forcefully, about exactly how they were going to get out of this.
A blink of an eye and all of a sudden England have the ball back. Ben Earl is bullocking his way downfield, past one, two, three tacklers and Fiji are reeling backwards to their own tryline. Here’s Manu Tuilagi, wide on the left and held inches short of the line, and here’s Marcus Smith, head wrapped in bandages, the front of his jersey covered in blood, the numbers ripped clean off the back, over on the right, stopped short too. England were in arm’s reach of the tryline. In the middle of it all, here’s Farrell, dropping back into the pocket for his shot at goal. From that distance, he couldn’t miss.
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The entire stretch of play lasted two minutes, from one end of the field to the other. The men who know Farrell best often say there is a reason you always play him when you can and the rest of us, who sometimes forget, might remember that passage of play the next time we wonder why so many coaches have stuck with him through the years.
So England have made the semi-finals. Somehow. They’ve done it even though they’ve precious little more to work with. Blood, sweat and effort, a solid scrum, a sure lineout, and the gnarly knowhow of a handful of grisly senior players, men who have been through the knockout rounds before, and have a point to prove to all the people who told them they wouldn’t make it this time around. And way back behind the rest of them, the kid Smith, who sometimes seems almost a token pick, the one Cavalier in the Roundhead XV. Smith is the shake of hot sauce across a very well done steak.
The atmosphere inside the Stade Vélodrome had been quiet until those final moments. All sports teams talk about the satisfaction of silencing the other side’s fans; England, though, sometimes feel like they take a measure of pleasure in boring their own supporters, too. Truth is, a calm crowd means Steve Borthwick’s plan is working like clockwork. Kick, catch, maul, kick, catch, maul. There’s a lot to admire in it all, just not much to shout about. His patterns are as intricate as Piet Mondrian’s (not the old Bordeaux full-back, that, but the other one). His teams play the game in straight lines and primary colours.
I’m not saying Borthwick’s England are predictable, but, uniquely among the eight teams who made it to the quarter-finals, they kicked every single one of their kickoffs and restarts to the very same side of the pitch. It doesn’t matter who’s taking it, or who they’re playing against. They go right every time, as reliably as the English electorate.
After that, England usually kick some more. They made 30 from hand against Fiji, which brings their total for the tournament to 165 in five matches. Altogether, they kick away more than two-thirds of their own possession. The other seven quarter-finalists do it, on average, just over half the time. The odd thing is, England actually enjoy more possession than most teams get off the back of it, because the opposition usually end up hoofing it back to them. Borthwick’s philosophy is a variation on Teddy Roosevelt’s approach to foreign policy. Talk softly and give it a big kick.
And, glory be, it’s working for him. Because it’s one thing to see the punch coming, another again to be able to get out of the way of it. None of the five teams they’ve come up against so far have managed it yet. Two months ago, when they lost at home to this same Fijian team, England looked like a rabble. In the weeks since, Borthwick has drilled them in how to win. Now, all of a sudden, they’re just one more away from a final.
