A disappointing calendar year for England has at least ended with a flurry of nine tries and a healthier-looking outcome. A bucket-load of points against a callow Japanese team on a blustery Sunday afternoon, however, does only so much to massage the overall bottom line. Five wins from 12 Tests – with four of the victories having come against Japan twice, Italy and Wales – tells the story of a side who look better when they face inferior opposition.
The burgundy-clad hosts did not have to extend themselves unduly, crossing the whitewash more often than in their previous three Autumn Nations Series games combined. There were two tries apiece for England’s hookers Jamie George and Luke Cowan-Dickie while Henry Slade had a quietly creative game in midfield but New Zealand, Australia and South Africa would all have fancied racking up closer to 80 points against Eddie Jones’s inexperienced side.
This was the rugby equivalent of shooting koi carp in a barrel and nowhere near the level of England’s other recent fixtures. The Brave Blossoms, minus their suspended lock Warner Dearns, were thoroughly outclassed and were blown away in the first 40 minutes prior to a slight second-half upturn. If England could play them every week they would be delighted.
So much for the fanciful theory that a swirling wind could just complicate things slightly. Might Storm Eddie conceivably sweep through Twickenham and cause some unscheduled havoc? The answer was such a resounding “no” that England did not really have to operate at much above third gear.
It did little, in truth, to transform the narrative around either team. Jones has endured a lean couple of years since his England tenure ended at the end of 2022 and, as with Australia last year, Japan are not yet blossoming under his tutelage. His former assistant Steve Borthwick now has a few weeks in which to regroup prior to the 2025 Six Nations but the next two games, against Ireland away and France at home, will be far better indicators of where England really are.
Dublin will certainly be very different. Here the home side had three tries on the board inside the first 23 minutes and would have had a fourth had a tiny knock-on by Jack van Poortvliet not been spotted in the buildup to a well-finished ‘try’ by Tommy Freeman in the right corner. It mattered not, with England so far in front in so many areas it raised questions about the hosts’ safety-first selection policy.
With experimentation kept to a minimum, the starting XV seemed to have been picked on the basis that England could not afford to lose. As if. Did Tom Curry, in particular have to play in this game? Knocked out against Australia and rushed back for this fixture it did little to suggest England’s management are erring on the side of caution when it comes to player welfare.
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At least it helped to swell George’s international try tally, the England captain doing his best mole-in-a-hole impression to burrow over for two driven maul scores. On the plus side, too, the finger-tip passing of George Furbank and Slade in the buildup to Ollie Sleightholme’s smart try three minutes before half-time was excellent and a welcome antidote to some of the profligate rugby England have produced this autumn.
Japanese highlights were less conspicuous, the exception being a delicious long-range try finished by their influential scrum-half and captain Naoto Saito after Dylan Riley had surged clear. There were echoes of England’s recently porous defensive efforts but the Brave Blossoms had so little quick ball to work with that it proved a temporary blip. By the interval it was already 35-7, with Sleightholme’s clever little kick and chase enabling him to equal his father Jon’s haul of England tries in the space of a fortnight. Much sterner Tests lie ahead but the Northampton left winger appears to have the predatory instinct of a modern-day Rory Underwood, which really is high praise.
It would have been nice to see what a few other newcomers could have achieved but the crowd were at least able to cast an eye over Sale’s 20-year-old prop Asher Opoku-Fordjour, who was given the last 25 minutes in which to make an impression. Big and strong, he has all the raw ingredients to make a considerable impact over the next decade.
There were occasional flashes of real skill from England’s backs as well, most notably in the play before their sixth try when Slade’s deft kick to the right corner was brilliantly flicked back behind his back by Freeman for his club colleague Furbank to score.
With Fin Smith on to partner Harry Randall at half-back and Marcus Smith shifting to full-back, the hope was that England would step on the gas in the final stages in a way they had failed to do previously. A rampaging Cowan-Dickie scored England’s seventh try just before the hour mark but it was Japan who struck next, slicing through the home midfield a touch too easily for Kazuki Himeno to finish emphatically.
Cowan-Dickie, though, was not finished and again proved unstoppable from close range before a nice step from the talented Tom Roebuck inflicted further damage. Here, finally, was an instance of England’s bench having a positive effect but, as with pretty much everything else, it felt strictly relative.
