England’s blitz defence is just not working

Tommy Freeman
England need to solve their leaky defence because at the moment it is stunting their progress - Getty Images/Julian Finney

Another week and another Test, against southern-hemisphere opposition, which slips away from England. But to have worked back to lead in the 80th minute at Twickenham on Saturday, a loss to Australia – and not a vintage Wallabies side at that – is even more gutting and alarming than chucking away an eight-point lead against New Zealand last weekend.

It does not matter which defensive system you employ nor who employs it, conceding 42 points at Twickenham, with 35 missed tackles en route, is not good enough. Early in the tenure of former defence coach Felix Jones, even with a few teething problems, England’s defence succeeded in stifling quality opposition with its aggression and intent; but the past fortnight at Twickenham has proved that it is now not working.

I am not convinced that the switch in defence coach – from Jones to Joe El-Abd – is entirely to blame, either. For me, the jury remains out as to whether England possess the requisite natural athletes to defend like South Africa. A blitz, up-and-in defence requires sprinters and cage-fighters; players who have the speed to get off the defensive line rapidly and make a mammoth impact when they reach the attacker.

But England have been unlocked too easily over the past fortnight. For two of Australia’s key scores – Max Jorgensen’s thrilling winner and Tom Wright’s opener – the player tasked with managing the backfield for England was caught in no-man’s land. Marcus Smith, stationed at full-back for the final 19 minutes, had no business biting in on Len Ikitau for the match-winning try, with the Australian centre classily slipping the offload away for Jorgensen. And, with England 12 points clear in the first half, George Furbank did the same, allowing Wright to canter over and Australia back into the game.

On Friday night, I watched New Zealand defend beautifully against the best team in the world – with slower line speed and an organised drift system. It still strangled Ireland and led to Andy Farrell’s side making a host of uncharacteristic errors. Scott Robertson, the All Blacks’ head coach, explained afterwards how his side had focused on flying off the line and then quickly killing their foot speed so as to avoid committing as many off-the-ball tackles as they did against England. It worked.

We do not have weapons of defensive destruction like South Africa and others but we do have intelligence. Running a blitz, as I said at the time, was always going to be a risky experiment. Have we ever had the ingredients to run it properly in this country? No. Has anything changed? No. England are conceding 15 or 20 points every game which could, on another day, be five or eight.

The blitz is not working as intended. It happens in life – business and sport – and you have to either double down on it, and improve it, or cut your losses. That is the crossroads that Steve Borthwick will find himself standing at now.

Should Borthwick and El-Abd opt to double down, then the system still requires greater balance. Defence, like so many aspects of life, is not binary. Why are England seemingly unable to know when to blitz and when not to? If that is the way they believe they must defend with the players available to them, I would back it, but no matter the defensive system, there is just no way that Smith and Furbank have made the right call to bite in for those two Wallaby tries.

On both occasions their blitz was mistimed and it gave Australia the outside. Guess what? On both occasions, they took it. The same occurred last week against New Zealand for Mark Tele’a’s try. England are blindly following a system – which might work, it might not – but is hindering their ability to play what is in front of them and make the right decisions.

Losing on Saturday was an absolute shocker for England. And it is not like it gets any easier next week, with the world champions, South Africa, in town. Despite all the positive mood music around England, Borthwick’s side are staring down the barrel of one win out of four this autumn – at best.

Next Saturday takes on added importance now. Before the loss to the Wallabies, the feeling was that England had been a touch unlucky against the All Blacks across three Tests, and that there were, at least, signs of progression and hope. But I would not begrudge any England fan who now saw the side’s current inability to close out matches as a virus. Another 12-point lead, another late loss, with a backs move capitulation nourishing Australian belief.

Fair play to the Wallabies, though. This is not the worst Australian team I’ve seen but they are certainly not the best. To a player, their athletic, sporting ability was better than their English counterparts. They might not be better at their rugby-specific roles, although they were on Saturday, but all of them look so comfortable on the ball, even when the game became disjointed. A team of great footballers.

Even with that, I was stunned at the final whistle. Stunned that England had let another lead slip, stunned that we are seeing the same defensive flaws, and stunned that, despite signs of progress, England are back to square one, languishing behind the three southern-hemisphere giants.