Steve Borthwick does not normally vent in public so when he does it means he is properly hacked off. “I don’t think any of us want rugby union to turn into Aussie rules,” muttered England’s head coach, not even bothering to downplay his distaste for the new refereeing crackdown on kick chase “escort” defenders that he fears will drag the sport down a path it regrets. “I am not sure everyone wants to watch more kicking and more scrums.”
Slightly ironic, perhaps, coming from a coach whose side barely played any expansive rugby for much of his first year in charge. On this occasion, though, Borthwick is absolutely within his rights. Inside the last fortnight the shape of the game has tilted significantly, with the odds now in favour of athletic kick chasers who have greater freedom than ever to make life a misery for full-backs underneath high balls.
The latter can no longer be protected by loitering defenders “holding their line” or artfully blocking onrushing players looking to challenge in the air. Cue more aerial competition, more pressure, more knock-ons and more incentive for teams not to indulge in anything fancier than a succession of garryowens. It is not unlike changing the lbw law on the eve of a major cricket Test series and the consequences are already reflected in England’s team to face South Africa.
As recently as March, England dropped Freddie Steward because they wanted to develop a more joined-up attack and pose more of a threat with ball in hand. Now George Furbank is on the outer again and “Safe Hands” Steward is back, specifically because of his ability to defuse high bombs from kick-happy opponents. Rugby’s tentative age of enlightenment has not lasted too long.
Which potentially creates a perception problem that goes beyond one or two coaches having to revisit the drawing board. Nor is it what World Rugby ideally wanted to hear on the same day it plucked an Australian, Brett Robinson, from its sorting hat to be the organisation’s new chair, with the specific aim of spearheading its efforts to make the game sexier to the casual fan.
Typical of rugby, you might think. Memories of last week’s brilliant 10-try contest with Australia are still fresh, the world champion Springboks are in town and what happens? The sport’s unerring ability to tweak a law interpretation only for that change to have completely unintended side effects is clearly alive and kicking. No wonder an affected coach such as Borthwick, who likes to plan everything in minute detail, is so exasperated. “It is certainly not the direction we’ve been trying to take our game in,” he confirmed, choosing his words with studied care.
Having stuff of this nature dumped on him from a great height undoubtedly makes an already tough job even harder. Every self-respecting top coach, suggests Borthwick, will now take a similar view and instruct their sides to kick more often. When it comes to selection, creative types will start losing out again to big stoppers. And if everyone simply hoofs the ball in the air and feeds off the resultant crumbs, rugby will lose out both in terms of tactical variation and charm.
The aforementioned Robinson, a narrow winner by 27 votes to 25 over France’s Abdelatif Benazzi for the World Rugby chair, will be among those monitoring the situation closely, with a decision on the permanent acceptance of the new 20-minute red card also having been postponed for now pending a full analysis of its impact on the current Autumn Nations Series.
The immediate question, though, is whether any of this boosts the chances of an English victory on Saturday. The Springboks, with their top names mostly all back, currently seem to have the answers to pretty much every question. Will they be greatly bothered that Ben Spencer, perhaps the best kicking scrum-half in the Premiership, has been dropped and replaced by Leicester’s Jack van Poortvliet after a couple of tight English losses? Hardly. Will they be encouraged by the injury absence of Tom Curry and Manny Feyi-Waboso? Almost certainly.
Potentially the only individual, Steward aside, who might force a little recalibration is Curry’s replacement, Sam Underhill, whose tackling will help shore up England’s defensive system. Amid all the chat about a rematch of last year’s World Cup semi-final, however, it is worth noting that England have only five surviving starters from that game. It will not be as easy as simply replicating what worked in the Stade de France that night.
And maybe the team sheet is a red herring anyway. After a flurry of close defeats, there is an argument that what England mostly require is an overdue change of luck. It has not, admittedly, been much in evidence so far this week: even the team’s media officer, having initially gone down with food poisoning, now has flu. Welcome to top-level coaching where expecting the unexpected is all part of the job.
