[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]T[/su_dropcap]he main difference between England and Ireland right now, in my opinion, is confidence. Not the kind of confidence that comes with playing particularly well – I don’t think England have looked all that impressive since the restart – but they are playing with the confidence of a team that does not have to concern themselves with aesthetics. Eddie Jones’ England are comfortable in their own skin a year out from their World Cup defeat to the Springboks and, in some ways, they have absorbed the game plan that defeated them in that game.
It isn’t that England didn’t kick a lot before or during the World Cup, they’ve just kicked a whole lot after the World Cup. During Six Nations 2020, England had the lowest amount of time in possession of all six teams, the most kicks (short box, long box and long exit off 10/12/15), the least collisions, least linebreaks, the most dominant scrum on both put-ins and the highest percentage of first phase conversions when it came to scoring tries.
England are more efficient, more effective and more aggressive than they’ve been in years and they do not have to concern themselves with “playing the right way” or becoming “more expansive in attack” because what they have is working for them, and winning for them.
Ireland, on the other hand, have to concern themselves with aesthetics because the last vestiges of the Schmidt era were associated with box kicking and losing. So Andy Farrell and Mike Catt have made a concerted effort to change our kicking tendencies. Ireland kicked the least out of all the Six Nations teams by quite a decent margin. England, to illustrate the point, kicked 73 times more than Ireland across their five games in the Six Nations. What does this mean? It means that England don’t overplay dead phases in their own half, they kick aggressively to shape the picture they want to play off and it’s all underpinned by enviable size and power in core areas of their selection.
England don’t need to throw offloads or rack up massive linebreak numbers when they kick this well and win as many offensive and defensive collisions as they do. The challenge for Ireland will be selecting a team that can break England’s phase sequences and allow us to build into the game.
England: 15. Elliot Daly; 14. Jonathan Joseph, 13. Ollie Lawrence, 12. Henry Slade, 11. Johnny May; 10. Owen Farrell (c), 9. Ben Youngs; 1. Mako Vunipola, 2. Jamie George, 3. Kyle Sinckler, 4. Maro Itoje, 5. Joe Launchbury, 6. Tom Curry, 7. Sam Underhill, 8. Billy Vunipola
Replacements: 16. Tom Dunn, 17. Ellis Genge, 18. Will Stuart, 19. Johnny Hill, 20. Ben Earl, 21. Dan Robson, 22. George Ford, 23. Max Malins
There’s no way around it, this will be an extraordinarily difficult challenge for Ireland.
I expect kicking will be a huge factor in how it’s played and won. The bigger you are physically, as a collective, the more value there is to kicking frequently because, with a well-drilled and fit transition defence, you can bring your size to bear in more efficient ways.
When you kick a lot, you force aerial duels, transition runbacks and lineouts. If you have a physically big team, aerial duels or kick transition events often translate over into scrums where you can focus your physicality onto the opposition directly. England have certainly done that this season to good effect and I think it’s fair to say they had the best scrum in the Six Nations from a numbers perspective. This will be especially relevant because Pascal Gaüzère, the referee who blew the Leinster scrum off the park against Saracens is refereeing this game. The selection of Stander – one of our most impactful defenders – on the flank, will hopefully tie up the problem that Leinster ran into during that game. England only conceded two scrum penalties on their 94 total scrums. On their 53 own put-ins, they won twelve penalties (highest in the Six Nations) and on 41 opposition put-ins, they won four penalties, also the highest in the Six Nations.
This isn’t an accident. England kick to force these scenarios with aggressive repeated kicks into the 15m channels.
I’ve included the last example as a look at how England play off a successful aerial duel. My point is that they really attack these moments as they are more than comfortable living with a scrum if they are over aggressive and knock the ball on in the chase.
Ireland will face a lot of scrummages, so creating a good early picture for Gaüzère will be crucial.
For Porter, Roux and the joined flanker, this means keeping an eye on Mako Vunipola’s short pull-down bind and transition into a long angle bind will be key to resisting England’s action on both put-ins.
England will force these scenarios, they are more than capable of winning penalties and they are ruthless from short-range lineouts. Another product of their kicking game is their kick transition bait, where they kick to attack the first and second phase after the kick receipt to produce favourable scenarios.
The ideal sequence here is to force a turnover further up the pitch with the kick pressure from the wingers and chasing forwards. You won’t usually see England losing five or six defenders to caterpillar rucks because it reduces their chasing efficiency – they want to cast a net in front of the kick receiver to maximise the pressure.
For Ireland, our behaviour and retention accuracy after the English kick is of vital importance. Dominating the aerial contest is a given – we cannot afford to fumble and lose these duels – but our work on transition is just as important.
In my opinion, we have to retain the ball when England kick to us and avoid getting baited into exchanging kicks with Farrell/Slade/Ford/Daly. This will put pressure on the kick receipt and the first ruck after the kick receipt but if we can survive England’s pressure there – rotating through Stander, Doris, Farrell, Aki, Ryan and Lowe will be important – we can play on our terms and yes, kick on our terms when we’ve brought England through a few phases.
Retain, recycle, kick to touch to pressure the English lineout.
Back in February, we rarely made Jones selection of Joseph as a free-midfielder expensive from a kicking perspective and the only way we’ll do that is by building on the phases England kick to us and giving Byrne the space and angles he needs to attack Lawrence/Joseph at the edge.
Any time that we get an opportunity to get after England’s lineout outside our 10m line, the better. England kick off these maul positions quite a bit (especially when they don’t have Tuilagi) so kicking to touch should produce transition ball for us at worst, lineout turnovers at best if we’re sharp in the backfield.
This will be an extremely difficult challenge but, without Tuilagi, I think we have a slight edge in our set-piece weaponry on full-man lineouts. If we can shore up our own lineout and generate regular possession there, we have a way into this game with our inside decoy loops and Farrell/Aki’s physicality.
