He was optimistic he could make that combo tick, but it got only a single start and most of the championship instead became Farrell being picked at No.10 ahead of Smith. With the exceedingly dull Martin Gleeson given the elbow for his misfiring efforts under Jones, Evans was the stopgap appointment at the start of the Six Nations tasked with igniting English creativity and coming up with the formula to get the best from the 10/12 Smith/Owen Farrell axis. Smith got a token 30-odd seconds off the bench at the end versus Wales, but even that was better than the zero involvement he had against Ireland as an unused sub. You must imagine that England’s temporary attack coach Nick Evans has been left feeling very awkward by how this Six Nations unfolded for Marcus Smith, his Harlequins colleague. ? 10-9 ? #IREvENG | #SuperSaturday ? /Scn7Xzgbjm The more non-English fans in attendance, the better it could be for Borthwick’s England.
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Their sequence of performances backs up this observation – remember as well that they were away series winners in Australia last July – so it is just as well that the upcoming finals are over in France, starting with that must-win September 9 opener against Argentina in Marseille. It appears that the supposedly supportive atmosphere at ‘Pub’ Twickenham just doesn’t inspire them and they instead thrive on being an away day villain. They grittily won in Wales last month, and it was only a one-point game until the 63rd minute in Dublin before the burden of being a red-carded man down eventually told on the scoreboard.
The English have been stinking out Twickenham all season, winning just two of seven matches at their HQ, and it is curious how they have looked a better team in their away games this year.
It’s a good job the World Cup isn’t an England 2023 tournament otherwise you’d fear a pool-stage elimination later this year. Instead, the spine is seasoned players who have done it at the highest level and the reality is they were let down by the ineffective game plans devised by their apprentice Test-level head coach – and what he provided them with in Dublin wasn’t a game-winning blueprint.Įngland player ratings vs Ireland | 2023 Guinness Six NationsĮngland player ratings live from Aviva Stadium: It’s said you cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth, but the No1 ranked Ireland were like nervous pussy cats for the guts of an hour chasing their Grand Slam. In other words, these players aren’t all wet-behind-the-ear rookies who haven’t a clue. He hasn’t delivered, and this cop-out blaming of Eddie Jones must stop.Īs much as Borthwick likes to allege that England have made a right old mess of this World Cup cycle compared to rival nations such as Ireland and France, the reality is that he still went into battle in Dublin with 11 of the 23 veterans of the squad that made the 2019 World Cup final – a group he was involved with as an assistant. He was appointed as head coach for a reason, to coach England to better results via greater consistency in performance. The more he has said it, the less impact it has had. That narrative eventually led to the out-of-his-depth Williams getting sacked by the Scots less than two years in, and Borthwick now needs to stop using this lame excuse that his English inheritance isn’t worth much. Not since Matt Williams oversaw Scotland in the early noughties has a Six Nations coach repeatedly branded the team he was given as generally not being very good. It was the type of underwhelming campaign that allowed new head coach Steve Borthwick to keep grasping the excuse about there being a large gap between England and the best, but this constant reference about what he has inherited not being very good jarred the longer the tournament went on and it grated again when he once more referenced it in Dublin on Saturday night.
They had the fourth-best points scored (100), the fourth-worst points conceded (135), the fourth-highest number of tries scored (13) and the fourth-most tries conceded (18). Here are five RugbyPass takeaways from what was the fifth English defeat in nine 2022/23 matches:Įngland were the perfect fourth-place finisher when you glanced at the final table.
Given those against-the-odds circumstances they can be pleased they emerged with kudos for not making things easy for Ireland and giving rugby fans the world over an engrossing contest to savour, but that satisfaction – in the cold light of day – plainly can’t be palatable as England should be faring way better than this.
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