Head coach draws on Rumble in the Jungle tactics to ease England to long overdue victory against the Springboks and extend his winning run to 10 gamesThis being Remembrance weekend, the match began with a minute’s silence and England’s players wore red poppies as well as red roses. But this past week marked another, far more trivial, anniversary too, one that went unlamented. Saturday was a year and a day since Stuart Lancaster quit as England’s head coach after the debacle of the World Cup. In terms of personnel, this England XV was not all that different from some that Lancaster fielded during his four years in charge. The pack was pretty much exactly the same as the one he...
The Springboks came to bully England but the scars inflicted by All Blacks thrashing were brutally exposed by a moment of slapstick at TwickenhamSo, South Africa remained unbeaten against England for a week shy of 10 years, a run of 12 matches. It was an impressive record. It is something to cling to. And they will take anything just now.This was a dispiriting prick of the balloon – and balloon-thick is South Africa’s confidence at the moment. Now they must add the 37 points conceded here to the 57 they shipped last time out a month ago to the All Blacks – at home in Durban. Lob in a host of other indignities over the last couple of years –...
The threat of a crushing defeat to South Africa lurks on Saturday, so the England coach is forced to continuously find new ways of ensuring his players never stop improvingAside from the first pictures of Donald Trump inside the White House there was no disputing the week’s most terrifying image. Those cold-hearted racer snakes lying in wait for young marine iguanas on Sir David Attenborough’s wonderful new BBC natural history series also happened to be an ideal allegory for the treacherous landscape of professional sport. To elude crushing disappointment requires determination and, above all, resourcefulness when it matters.In many ways that is Eddie Jones’s key attribute; it takes more than a pack of biro-wielding snakes to deter the wily, fast-talking...
One year on from the Rugby World Cup, Robert Kitson ranks the top tier sides, with the All Blacks showing no sign of losing their dominanceEighteen wins on the spin and counting. The All Blacks will not stay unbeaten forever but sometimes it feels that way. Over the next month they will face Ireland (twice), Italy and France and, barring accidents, it should be 22 straight victories by the time they fly home. The head coach, Steve Hansen, and his lieutenants deserve credit for the impressive manner in which the team has refocused and developed since retaining the Webb Ellis Cup last year. Who said Dan Carter, Richie McCaw, Ma’a Nonu et al were irreplaceable? In the shape of Aaron...
New Zealand are in imperious form but the gap between the northern and southern hemisphere teams, All Blacks excepting, may not be as great as beforeNovember is a month when the clocks have just gone back and darkness descends on the home unions in the form of the major southern hemisphere nations. This year there is some light to tickle the green shoots of hope: the All Blacks are not venturing into Britain, the Wallabies are wobbling and the Boks have lost their spring.Australia start their five-match tour in Cardiff on Saturday5 November. Given the combustibility of their head coach, Michael Cheika, in recent months – he raged in his media conference after the Auckland defeat to New Zealand last...