Defence and its Value to the Game
By apb on 16/06/2003
June 17 2003
Not being a Sky subscriber, and not being able to make it to a boozer to watch the match live, I was in the wierd position of listening to the All Blacks v England match on Radio 5 Live on Saturday.
I still haven't seen any video footage, so it's even wierder that I'm attempting to write something about that game. However, I'm going to give it a go.
First of all, let me start by complementing Messrs. Robertson, Hignall and Chilcott for their commentary. Whatever your views about the skill of these gentlemen to assess a rugby match, they certainly gave the atmosphere and allowed me to imagine in reasonable detail what was going on on the pitch. This is a far cry from the woeful attempt that was made at radio commentary for the ZP in the season just gone. The BBC used to advertise this as being "as biassed as you are". However, all too frequently the ZP games were accomapnied by the two co-commentators chatting to each other about the weather, the relative merits of one player in the selection over another, and generally what a nice place The Stoop is these days, without any thought for the anxious listener strugging to get a feel for whats going on.
So it was great to hear a proper commentary that got all the action across and was not unnecessarily biassed (I think, anyway!), and did "the chat thing" only during natural breaks in play - mind you there were a lot of them!
It seems perfectly clear to me from this though, that the Kiwis were not firing on all cylinders. The strong running from the backs was all too often isolated, causing holding on penalties to be conceded, and Carlos Spencer (as everyone seems to agree) had an absolute mare as a place kicker which effectively handed the game to England.
In attack, England lacked penetration and too often seemed to be trying to prove that the "boring England" tag wasn't deserved, resulting in frequent spills, where the sensible approach would have been to have used the forwards much more in attack. Perhaps this was just as well, in that the 13 vs 15 man spell in the second half was absolutely inspired defensive play, and the fact that no points were conceded in that time is even now difficult to believe. Yet that is exactly what happened.
So the test match was between two uninspiring teams at each end of their respective seasons. Clive Woodward believes that England in attack will get much better come the World Cup, but that defensively, there's probably not much higher to go! Likewise, John Mitchell sees this defeat as a setback against a young All Blacks side that hasn't played together very much, and will move from strength to strength over the coming months.
It may have escaped your attention, but Saturday was the day that the Queen's Birthday Honours List was announced. Its a shame that it was the same day. Had they waited a bit, I could think of an addition to the list - Phil Larder. What that man hasn't done for English Rugby Union since he joined the coaching team in 1997 could be inscribed in foot high letters on a postage stamp. With this performance, Larder has shown that the English team in defence is (almost) unbreachable and certainly so far unbeatable.
If England come back from Australia in November with the Webb Ellis Trophy in their excess baggage, its a fair bet that the New Year's list would see an "arise, Sir Clive". But my vote now goes to the defensive coach that has got us to this point. How about Lord Larder of Twickenham?