Where do England go from here? The only logical answer is home from the World Cup early. Try as they might, they just cannot escape the eye of the storm. That which has swirled around Owen Farrell all week – and will continue to do so at the start of next – has been tempestuous to say the least and on Friday, Dublin was battered by Storm Betty for good measure. There was no let up on the field either from Ireland, who barely got out of second gear, and Billy Vunipola’s red card only adds to the sense of chaos engulfing their World Cup preparations.
If Steve Borthwick is wedded to a kicking game then that is all well and good but the problem is that England are executing it dreadfully. Ireland could not have been more comfortable in dealing with England’s kick-chase which, like pretty much every other facet of their game, was horribly out of sync. Alex Mitchell was called into the squad at the start of the week after Jack van Poortvliet was ruled out of the World Cup through injury. Maybe Borthwick would have been better off convincing Richard Wigglesworth to lace up his boots again – for the irony is that the scrum-half best suited to carrying out England’s game-plan is currently employed as their attack coach.
After the week that was, the “absolutely disgusting” circus as Ireland’s head coach Andy Farrell called it, was it too much to expect that England might play with a greater sense of fun than this? It is only sport after all, but part of the entertainment industry too and what better way to end one of rugby union’s most toxic weeks in living memory than to remind us all why they fell in love with it in the first place.
The issue, however, is that, to strip everything back, they just don’t look like they are enjoying representing their country. Their disciplinary problems – Vunipola’s red card is a huge problem for Steve Borthwick given there is no other specialist No 8 in his World Cup squad – further suggest that there is little to smile about when playing for England at present.
Indeed, increasingly it is Murphy’s law that seems to be governing England’s World Cup warm-up campaign. Equally, you have to wonder if England might have spent less time getting Farrell off in his first hearing, then carping when his second was announced, and more time hammering into their players that they cannot afford red cards.
Discipline aside, it is the lack of urgency about England which troubles most. The ponderousness in possession. The fact that it is now almost six hours since a back scored a try. Ben Youngs is England’s most capped men’s international of all time but you have to question what is going on when it is he who is chasing Anthony Watson’s kick to contest rather than vice versa. On one occasion in the first half Youngs ambled towards the back of a maul with a remarkable lack of enthusiasm, and on another he flung the ball to Ellis Genge, who was standing still and soon going backwards fast.
Of course England are trying their best to click in an attacking sense, no doubt things are going well on the training field as they keep telling us but the problem they have is one of perception. Ponderousness like this gives the impression that they have no interest in playing with anything like the kind of ambition that gets supporters on the edge of their seats.
Ireland were rusty in a number of areas here – for many of their players it was a first hit-out of the summer – but they were still able to combine for their first-half tries in a manner that seems so far out of England’s reach and continue in the same vein in the second once some of the cobwebs had been blown off. That is the difference between a well-oiled machine, fine-tuned under Andy Farrell’s watch since the last World Cup, and Borthwick’s race against time.
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At fly-half the contrast was evident. Both sides were without their captains in Johnny Sexton and Farrell but Ross Byrne finds it so much easier to slip into a system that is so well drilled. George Ford, on his first start since 2021, showed a degree of poise early on, he did his best to link with Manu Tuilagi and England came close to finding the edge as a result but it is hard to remember the last time England made and capitalised on a line-break, let alone scored a try, close-range pushovers notwithstanding.
The idea before the match was that what England perceive as injustice over Farrell’s disciplinary saga would galvanise them into a performance that would stop Michael Cheika’s Pumas licking their lips. That maybe Ford could finally get England going and that maybe Borthwick may have to consider how Farrell fits back into the side. It is becoming clear, however, that individuals are not the problem, rather it is systemic failure that does not look like being fixed any time soon.
