Sir Clive Woodward: A five-point plan to save England's World Cup tilt
SIR CLIVE WOODWARD: My five-point plan to save England’s World Cup tilt after their Cardiff horror show
- Steve Borthwick names his 33-man England World Cup squad on Monday
- After the 20-9 defeat against Wales, they must draw a line under the horror show
- England should play with pace, stop stifling Danny Care, and try new things
Steve Borthwick names his England World Cup squad on Monday and when he sits down with those 33 players he must draw a line under the horror show against Wales. That result needs to be forgotten — and quickly.
The England head coach still has time to turn things around. Here is my five-point plan for how he can do it…
PLAY WITH PACE
England have to find a way of playing with pace. Borthwick’s side won’t beat the best teams at the World Cup with the same old tactics of kick and chase!
The way to ensure you are playing at pace is the speed of play from lineouts, scrums and the breakdown. I always used a call out ‘nine hanging’ which meant our scrum-half was out of breath because he was having to work so hard to get to every ruck. A team should be able to ask the scrum-half: ‘Are you hanging?’ If he is not, the team is not playing quick enough!
From what I’ve seen of the Borthwick era so far, England are just far too slow from these three key areas of play. There needs to be a complete shift in approach with the handbrake taken off.
Steve Borthwick will name his 33-man England World Cup squad on Monday
The team have plenty of work to do after their dire showing against Wales on Saturday
Stop stifling Care
To play with pace for 80 minutes you need the right players on the field. My back-row would be Tom Curry, Ben Earl and Zach Mercer. I’d also have either Alex Mitchell, Raffi Quirke or Ben Spencer as scrum-half options.
Unfortunately, Mercer, Mitchell, Quirke and Spencer aren’t in the squad which says a lot! That said, England can speed up the way they play with the players Borthwick has selected.
It is down to coaching and this needs to go to a totally different level. Danny Care does play quickly in a Harlequins shirt but with England, he is clearly told to kick and even worse, slow the ball down at rucks while he gets runners in place.
In the first 60 seconds of the game in Cardiff, Care slowed the ball down and it set the tone for the whole game. Jack van Poortvliet did the same when he came on and at that point, England were behind and chasing the game. Why? For me it is a recipe for disaster.
England must stop stifling Danny Care. Why did he have to slow the ball down against Wales?
Give the first team time to gel
England still have three games before their World Cup opener with Argentina. Borthwick must pick his first choice XV for the rematch with Wales at Twickenham on Saturday and give all England fans a team to get behind. It should be the same for the trip to Ireland.
England’s key players can then be rested against Fiji with Argentina in mind. Cardiff showed that England do not currently have a game plan to beat the best in the world, regardless of selection. As a coach, I always used to say if I had four games, I could make an impact on any team. There is still time before Argentina but the clock is ticking.
Try new things
England need to use their remaining warm-up matches to take their game to the level required to win the World Cup.
I didn’t mind that England lost to Wales. Defeats happen. But what I did mind was the way they played which really surprised me. Why kick for goal three times in the first half of a warm-up game?
England will need to do far more than that to be successful at the World Cup so Borthwick must tell his players to use these games to try things out before its too late.
England need to try new things and be passionate. The played showed no urgency in Cardiff
No ‘if onlys’, bring the passion!
I would be telling the England players just how big a chance they have at the World Cup. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Some of the players in this squad won’t play in another.
Borthwick’s players didn’t show any sense of urgency in Cardiff. Many must be regretting that game now. It was a huge opportunity missed, especially for those on the fringes of the squad.
England do have the players to beat any team and they can still do so but we need passion and real excitement based solely about the way we are going to play. That is what professional sport is all about.
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