by For England the sense of deja vu was inevitable on Saturday night. As Thomas Ramos slotted home an 80th-minute penalty to give France the narrowest of victories, minds drifted back to Paris and South Africa’s Handré Pollard doing exactly the same in the World Cup semi-final. If the fact that they emerged on the right side of a shocking relegation just a week earlier is any indication of the fine odds of professional sport, England could be forgiven for feeling that way again.
But this one won’t hurt as long or cut nearly as deep. There is a lot of hope for Steve Borthwick’s side. The World Cup event was greeted with little respect as a limited team made it to the last four but, on the evidence of their win in France and their impressive win against Ireland, England have found themselves again. They have finally found an attacking edge that was missing in the second half of Eddie Jones’ reign and their supporters are once again in awe.
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“I stood watching, warming up, thinking that’s the blueprint for this England team going forward,” said second-half substitute Danny Care. “The speed, power and precision they showed, the fight to get back into the game – I’m very proud of that. Everyone better watch out because when this team is on fire, it’s going to be very hard to stop them.”
The turning point of this campaign – perhaps for Borthwick’s tenure as well – came after the error that got out of Scotland. The squad promised “incredibly honest” talks when they gathered in York for the second week of detection and it is understood that senior players, even some of Borthwick’s team, challenged him to spend more time working on attack in training. His unavailability could be seen in the clunkiness at Murrayfield, the handling errors, the unfamiliarity and the lack of integration of what England were doing.
The focus up until that point was on drilling into the new defensive system of the Felix Jones players but for the fortnight ahead of Ireland the attack was polished and the results were visible at Twickenham. Against France, after withstanding a first-half attack, it was just as electric as they fought back from 16-3 down.
“Our mindset since Scotland has been to really go for teams with the ball in their hands,” halfback George Ford said. “Be a threat, ask questions, shoot fire, have that attack team, be on the front foot a lot more. I think you’ve seen that in the last two weeks. We had to start up after that [Scotland] game. We had to make a choice. It was behind that game where we had to have a few honest conversations about things and decide what team we wanted to be.”
Ford is transformation personified. He was celebrating his 31st birthday on Saturday, winning his 96th cap, but is playing again as the teenager who burst onto the scene with Leicester. “For the last two weeks I wanted to be closer to the line, I wanted to be more threatening and more aggressive, then bring the other lads with us,” he said.
“Against Scotland, we were too deep off the line. When you’re passing teams, going over the top and creating heads for each other, creating the speed of the ball – the ruck is fast, that’s when you get on a little roll and don’t let the teams recover . That’s when the best attacks come to the party. I looked at myself and how I could influence that more.
“I feel like another player on the field. In retrospect, sometimes you can fall into the trap when playing in high-class test matches and you have the responsibility of taking decisions, managing the game and placing the team in the right areas. I went too far down that side of the spectrum.
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“We definitely went to one side of the spectrum and that’s what the whole conversation has been about ever since. [Scotland] game; that we must change the other way.”
Against France it was Ben Earl – one of the great players on the pitch again – and Ollie Lawrence providing the progress that makes it much easier for Ford to play fair. We saw it with Marcus Smith’s effort, after Earl made the break, but it was perhaps Tommy Freeman’s score, after quick hands from Ford and Smith, that gives the supporters the biggest reason.
So how would Ford sum up the new England way?
“It’s more of you with the line, running into gaps, running into spaces, creating one-on-ones, getting a quick ball at the ruck and being on them. The penny has dropped in terms of what kind of team we want to be and how dangerous we can be.”
Against France there were mistakes, too, and not the kind that Borthwick repeatedly said would happen, the kind that can be forgotten or doubled down on. Smith awarded a penalty for bringing Ramos out in the air and set the stage from which France struck through Léo Barre. Ramos’ ruined lineout was another costly mistake – Gaël Fickou was under the posts early on – and while there is debate as to whether the TMO should have intervened at the death, a non-arm’s length move was a serious one. Earl. on another fine copy for Number 8.
The next challenge, as the mind turns to the summer tour of Japan and New Zealand, is to eradicate those errors. “If you look at points in that game we’re still searching for that perfect 80-minute performance,” Care said. “But that never happens. In games against the best teams in those little moments where you just have to close shop or not let them score, find moments to protect the momentum or take control when needed.”
