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 16/9/07
Very occasionally a game comes along which
renders the normal emotional responses
redundant. That match happened on Friday
night at the Stade de France when England
were poleaxed by South Africa. England were
so inept, so woeful that the now customary
reaction of anger or frustration following
their dismal performances to date was
inappropriate. This time the feelings went
beyond rage to a dull ache of recognition
that this World Cup has been calamitous for
England's reputation around the world, that
the players by and large are not of Test
stature and that there have been serious
shortcomings in the squad's selection and
preparation.
One figure rises above that assessment.
Jason Robinson, in what might have been his
final game of rugby of any kind, was
extraordinary. Without him it would have
been permissible to assume that South Africa
were a great side and indeed they might
prove to be just that as the tournament
unfolds. What Robinson did, though, with
every fibre of his body including the
several which snapped as he stepped up a
gear in the second period, was to show his
team-mates that the Springboks were human.
Robinson's contribution was one of the great
rearguard efforts in sport. It was just so
horribly pertinent that his bristling was
made even more emphatic by the malaise of
those that surrounded him.
Clearly there are problems within this
England camp which stretch beyond the wasted
years following the last World Cup where no
succession planning, an interminable
conveyor belt of political squabbles and a
sequence of coaches have brought England to
their present predicament. Those are
responsible for some of England's
difficulties but there are other issues,
many of a more practical nature, which have
derailed this campaign.
Why, if you bring Lawrence Dallalgio to
France, do you leave him out of the only
fixture which will juice up his old bones?
Why persist with Andy Farrell when at no
time since he cheapened England's
international jersey by having it handed to
him on a plate has he looked even remotely
like a Test midfield back? Why the confusion
from coach Brian Ashton over who was wearing
the No 10 shirt in the run-up to the game
that was interpreted as a plan to unsettle
the Boks but which smacked of an inability
to make a decision? Why no fire from England
in their first two matches? Why no tactical
intelligence out on the pitch?
Why? Why? Why?
Ashton can point to the absence of Jonny
Wilkinson, Olly Barkley and Phil Vickery as
legitimate reasons for England's
wretchedness, but this is very much his
squad in terms of personnel and training
regimes. He has had them exclusively since
June 25 and therefore has to accept
responsibility for their inertia. Even his
honest admission of bemusement over why
England struggled so badly against the
United States now looks like the flailings
of a man who has lost his team and his own
sense of how to get the best out of them
following the Springbok encounter.
But England's descent into derision is not
Ashton's responsibility alone. It is now
time to make an honest assessment of the
quality of players at his disposal and to
acknowledge that a third of Friday's team
are not capable at the moment of taking on
the best sides in the world. Some may
develop and use the experience to resurrect
their careers but, as things stand, Nick
Easter, Shaun Perry and Jamie Noon are no
more than average club players; Matt Stevens
is too gentle a prop; Mark Regan is too
engrossed in the mythology of the battle
rather than the reality of it; and Paul
Sackey and Tom Rees are young men with
potential trying to finesse a game before
they have mastered the fundamentals. Only
Robinson, Andrew Sheridan, Martin Corry and
Josh Lewsey have genuine international
pedigrees and, Robinson apart, on Friday
they were pretty much submerged by the
ordinariness that accompanied them.
So what now for England? There is the little
matter of a game with Samoa on Saturday
followed by an outing with Tonga, encounters
England must win to give them one last
chance of redemption in a quarter-final. In
ordinary circumstances you would back
England to win both but these are bizarre
times and Samoa, even allowing for the gross
inequality of resources available to the
respective teams, will be tough.
"We had two weeks in Loughborough and a week
in Samoa to prepare for this World Cup,"
explained Michael Jones, the former All
Black flanker who took on the coaching role
after the last tournament. "But that week in
Samoa was mainly farewells and social
functions."
Samoa are still hugely neglected by the
rugby community. Despite a High Performance
Unit (HPU) established through funding from
the International Rugby Board, the
asset-stripping by New Zealand and Europe is
ruthless. Six of the side that started
against South Africa in their opening match
play their rugby in the Premiership. A
further two work out of Scotland.
Each year schools from New Zealand tour the
island, ostensibly for highly competitive
rugby matches but also to offer scholarships
to the more gifted Samoan kids, who are then
swallowed up and lost to their country of
birth. "The HPU is beneficial," Jones said.
"It ensures we're investing in the next
generation of Samoan players on-island. But
it's not going to stop them going off-island
because the money is still offshore. You
could say that the HPU is becoming a nursery
for clubs overseas."
The pace of change is slow. Peter Fatialofa,
one of Samoa's most famous forwards now a
coach alongside Jones, reckons that the gym
culture alien to the islanders is gradually
producing results. "We used to lift coconuts
and banana trees," he joked. "Now we have
proper weights and a dietician." But even
that cannot override the problems Jones
faces coalescing a team from such an
itinerant bunch of athletes. "We get our
players from eight different systems," he
said, "so we've got a lot of work to do to
bring them together."
Jones is adamant that the migration of
Samoan rugby players into different nations
and cultures will not detract from their
core values. "We don't try to turn them into
a New Zealand rugby clone or an Australian
or English rugby clone," he said. "We bring
them back to the essence of who they are and
that is based around pace, power and
passion. We love to run with the ball. We
love to bring our physicality onto the
pitch. It's part of the warrior spirit. I
can't bottle that up. I need to smooth over
the rough edges but it would be remiss of me
to train it out of them because that's the
gift they've been given. We always talk
about 'playing to the gift'."
Playing to the gift? That's a concept alien
to this England team and their grotesque
collection of attendants. For the second
time in two matches there was laughter after
the Springbok contest as the replacements
and non-combatants warmed down out on the
pitch. It seemed glaringly inappropriate at
the time, even more so this morning as the
scale of the catastrophe sinks in. What
would England give for some warrior spirit.
This week they are not just fighting for
survival. They are fighting for
self-respect.
PAUL ACKFORD -
Sunday Telegraph | Sunday, 16 September 2007
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