Italy’s tactics were fine, it was England’s (lack of) response that ruined the game

Let’s get a few things out of the way first, before addressing Italy. 

1. Firstly, Farrell had a very poor game. Obviously his kicking was appalling, not only all the missed points, but also the 2 missed penalty kicks to touch. But more importantly, he reverted back to the slightly angry youngster he used to be, with late hits and generally stroppy behavior. 
2. Secondly, Hartley also had a very poor game. As a player, he didn’t make much of an impact, but as a captain, he did nothing to rally the troops in the face of ‘unusual’ tactics. As one comemtator said on RTE2, this was the end of any thought of him being the Lions captain (potentially even being on the Lions tour). 
3. Thirdly, Hughes had another bad game, shipping far too many unnecessary penalties. Not a shocker, but just not making an impact or reading the game. He’s just about OK as a replacement, perhaps, but we need a better Billy back up. 
4. Fourthly, the 2 Italian tries were well taken, but very poorly defended. Look at the ‘defensive’ line up for the kick at goal – one massive whole on the rebound route. And for Campagnaro – a fine player yes, he should never have got through. 
5. Finally, England’s overall attitude and response to Italy’s tactics was woeful. They complained and demonstrated their lack of understanding of the laws, but they did not address it and adapt.

Where Italy’s tactics bad for rugby?

As a fan watching the game, I hated it and I hated Italy for using them. But with thought, I realised I was hating our response to the tactics not the tactics themselves. We need to be honest, this is not actually new. As Paul O’Connell said on the BBC highlights, the Chiefs have done this before (which I didn’t know) and it’s happened at International level. However, we’ve seen it before with the maul. By not engaging in the maul, you create the ‘truck and train’ and the potential for the penalty. So a tactic to disrupt a team is not new (in fact, Paul O’Connell said that’s exactly what they did to beat South Africa 2 year’s ago). For me the issue is merely that England failed to understand what Italy’s approach gave to them as an advantage and just effectively sulked.

Could England have done anything to counter the tactic?

The more I think about it, the more options England had. So I will do a list of all the things that we could have done:

1. Fast ball. If you recycle the ball very quickly, rather than playing a ruck scenario, then Italy would not have had the time to stray ‘offside’. England completely failed to just massively up the pace
2. Maul it instead. If Italy are not going to play the ruck, then don’t go to ground. England normally play the double hit to have a player protect the ball immediately on the tackle. All they had to do was switch to a mini-maul and do a slow drive. This would either create a big line break or suck defenders in. Not a huge change needed.
3. Pull a defender in to create a ruck. Literally, just pulling an Italian player to ground at the tackle area would have created a ruck. Not sure it happened once.
4. Keep it tight among the forwards. Leave the No.9 effectively out of it. Just use a forward based strategy. 2 go in, next person goes in on the pick and drive with another forward on back up. Recycle and repeat.
5. Up the middle. There are no defenders, which is a dream. So keep going through the middle to suck defenders in.
6. Crash ball. So the Italians keep going ‘off-side’, so consistently have forwards running up on the short crash ball from the forward. With these tactics, you have a metre off-side area still, so it’s a guaranteed pass (Haskell even confirmed this safe metre distance at one point).
7. Chipping over the ‘ruck’ with someone to run on the ball.
8. Keep it very wide. Teams don’t do this for fear of losing the ball. But if Italy have a clear strategy of not engaging the ruck, then by going wide fast was a smaller risk, so do it.
9. Do the same as they were doing (in fact, England did this a couple of times with some effect)

So the reality is that with the ball, England had 8 distinct and not difficult strategies to attempt on the fly, and really, they barely tried any (apart from a bit of going up-the-middle). 

It barely seems worth rating players for this match. The best that can be said is that this is an incredibly stern kick up the ass for the players and hopefully for that, a positive. I’m sure part of Jones’ reaction is to protect the players and make the story about him, not them – effective as always with his media strategy. But I also suspect more than ever that he’s pretty angry with himself. But for what it’s worth, Itoje had hit best outing at No.6, Te’o wasn’t awful. And Nowell was a significant improvement (still don’t understand why he’s not starting). 

For all this, I do think the law will be addressed. Sure, there are ways of dealing with it, but Eddie is right in saying you cannot have a game when for all of it the No.9 can’t pass to his team. On the one hand it depowers an element of the game, but you will effectively end up with a form of rugby league if the tackle area becomes just that and not a contact area. 

So on to the Scotland game. Who were superb in the 2^nd half against Wales (although it must be said that Wales were pretty average too). If we were playing Scotland on their patch, I’d have them as favourites. At home, I think England should be able to just about nick it. Assuming Scotland don’t come up with any clever tactics, obviously!

England sneak a win again, but there are some structural challenges ahead.

What a tense and tough game and one that Wales certainly deserved to win. Of course I’m happy with the win, but as with the France game, there are some areas of concern that, if not corrected before the Ireland game, mean we will have very little chance of winning.

But first the positives

England’s ability to defend and remain organised in defence for 80 minutes is outstanding. With this, England earn the right to sneak a win by allowing for momentum to remain against them without shipping too many points. Nowell is excellent in defence. His line running to defend 3 Welsh players was brilliant and ultimately tackled the man with the ball. 

A key element of remaining focused when defending is fitness and our overall fitness is excellent too. Launchbury, Hughes and Lawes not only kept tackling, but kept on taking the ball into countless contacts, of which they won precisely zero. But they kept at it. This alone will have helped to tire Wales and give us a chance to win at the death. But my God it must have been unpleasant to keep running into the Welsh defence knowing you were going to get stopped or hurled backwards.

The ‘Finishers’ again made the difference. I love the idea of subs being rebranded as it gives the role a greater significance. And boy are we relying on them to give us much needed go forward ball and a boost of energy. Everyone knows I used to be a Haskell hater, but he really makes a difference providing energy and sowing some doubt into the minds of defenders. George always runs low, but I’m sure he’d seen how the contacts were going during the game, so went into every collision pretty much with his head by his ankles. Forget trying to bash through, just recycle quickly. Very effective it was too.

But now for the worries

In the lead up to the game, all the talk was about the 2 backrows. And obviously the Welsh boys smashed it. But actually, even though we were roundly beaten, we stayed solid enough and never gave up or worried (cf the 2013 game). We did better than I thought we would. But the real concern is that amongst them and ALL our forwards, I cannot think of one contact that we broke through. To win a game when so comprehensively out-muscled is amazing. 

Just as worrying is that we appear to have stop bothering to try to turnover the ball. We successfully turned over the ball once in open play – and what a ‘finishers’ performance from Kyle Sinkler to come on and show how it’s done and what a time to do it! It was so bad, I do wonder if it’s a Jones tactic to somehow improve a different part of the game. If you look at the replays, on countless occasions Itoje went off his feet before he was even cleared out – it was bizarre.

What to do about Ford defensively? O’Connell is turning into a superb match commentator. He highlighted the fact that the issue is not that Ford doesn’t tackle people – he generally does. It’s that it guarantees go-forward ball to the opposition and therefore momentum. France and Wales successfully did this time and again. We are very good defensively, so we don’t lose points as a result, but we do lose momentum and that is an easy win tactically for upcoming opposition.

I’m a massive fan of Jonathan Joseph. But he seems a bit off form at the moment (as do Hartley and Brown). The Liam try was straight-up superbly executed, but conceding a try off first-phase ball shouldn’t happen. Joseph will be the one to take the blame for his positioning on that try and that’s probably fair. 

It seems to me that it will be impossible for us to beat Ireland with its strong and dynamic pack and clinical finishing from the backs – if we continue with these problems. In fact, with Scotland’s impressive form, they will be a real threat too.

Implications for starting 15 against Italy

O’Connell (again) made the point that he didn’t expect too many changes as it’s 2 week’s till the Italy game and then another 2 week’s before the next. Which would mean 4 week’s between games. But then Jones pretty much said he’d make changes.  For me, given form issues already highlighted, I expect Jones to start with a back 3 of May, Nowell and Daley at full back. And I believe Teo will come in for Joseph. 

I don’t see the need for significant changes in the pack. Our backrow is made up of people to cover for injuries, so expect Haskell to continue building on match fitness – whether that is starting or not depends on his progress. Otherwise, Clifford needs game time as does Itoje if he’s again to be a 6. He might start with George to give Hartley a kick up the butt, but wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t.

The solution (e.g. the Vunipolas)

Wow do we miss them. All the issues above are pretty much fixed by the return of Billy and Mako. It looks like Mako will be back to playing for the next match, so that’s very good news. We’re a different balance completely when they are playing. But we need to have a better answer to their absence.

A final note about Wales

They have so many superb players and their back-row is outstanding. If Moriarty came off because of timing (rather than fitness stats), then Howley is a total idiot. But also their 2^nd row and front row were superb. In the backs, Davies and Williams are wonderful players. It’s easy to have a go at Davies for the kick that gave England the try, but it was clearly a tactic for Wales throughout the game. So whilst he still should have kicked it off, he was sticking to the script. Also the decision not to go for goal twice in the 1^st half. Ultimately they got their try from continued momentum, so I don’t have an issue with it in the end (even though I would still have wanted him to go for goal). 

But there is one exception to the talent and that is Cuthbert. It’s tough to pick on a player, I just don’t think he is international standard. To borrow from Cricket, he’s a flat track bully. When things are good, he’s very good, but when they’re not, he’s way off the pace. He actually gifted England both tries. First off for staying too high as a ruck defender on the try line – to let Youngs in. Then by being too slow to react to the threat, thus giving Daley the outside to score the try. That shouldn’t have happened either. You cannot blame a defeat on a single player, but that's a significant contribution to the opposition from one person.