How the mighty have fallen

Posted by Morné - 16/09/07 at 11:09 am under World Cup 2007

As South Africa rejoice, England’s supporters are trying to pick up the pieces and wonder how the once mighty, have fallen so far.

Stephen Jones is not our favourite rugby writer as South Africans, but his article in The Times is one of the better reflections from and English point of view I have read since Friday – so good in fact that I even found parallels with what they are now going through, and what we went through as South Africans over the last couple of years before White.

As Jason Robinson was led from the field on Friday evening, a swelling over the eye and blood on his face from a previous injury, and hobbling painfully from the torn hamstring that had caused him to pull up dramatically when on a typical attack, the 80,000 in the stadium suddenly forgot the match (and no Englishman needed an excuse to do that).

People immediately saw the significance. Robinson, in a team that had played without invention, skill or passion, had shown all three. He had been quite magnificent and people wanted to show their appreciation. Those who understand pesky torn hamstrings, and know that Robinson will retire after the tournament, realised too that we were almost certainly seeing him on a rugby field for the last time. The RFU will this morning review scans on both Robinson and Jamie Noon (knee) before giving a verdict, but the medical staff are pessimistic.

Large sections of the crowds and the England bench rose to applaud the neat yet stricken figure. Robinson looked on the point of rare emotion. Then, as he reached the touchline, and to their everlasting credit, the whole South African bench rose and applauded.

It was uplifting, yet unbearably sad. Robinson – who gave both codes of rugby a great name, and who often played and behaved and entertained stupendously – was probably gone for good. So, in terms of this World Cup and as a team with any pretensions, are England.

Walking out of the ground, it hit me that this long, horrible England grind towards some kind of decent standard has ended in dishonour. But there was no anger, in me or in the silent white thousands, just sadness. England were not even good enough to be angry about. What would be the point of remonstrating with poor Andy Farrell, a rabbit in the Stade de France floodlights. I was not even angry at Brian Ashton’s insistence that England had not been as bad as all that. Yes they were Brian, my goodness they were. It was, in its context, the worst England performance I have ever seen – and over 25 years that takes in some screaming nightmares, I can tell you.

It was hard to be angry with Ashton because I like him, though I have serious doubts that he is equipped to be in charge of a national coaching team. If someone as brilliant as Jeremy Guscott says that Ashton is the best coach he ever worked with then you must listen; but encouraging a great player to be better is different to fronting the whole thing; and a different thing to be working for an organisation which has made such a ghastly mess of the running of professional rugby and the England team, as the Rugby Football Union (RFU) have.

Overwhelmingly, I was sad for England and its rugby. The sport in England is fantastic, brilliant, balanced, burgeoning. I love it, and am proud of it. Up to my limitations, I have played rugby in England, coached it and refereed it. I have been known to go and watch it on days off with my lads and friends (once I even paid to get in) and chat away about it at mini and junior rugby and dinners and clubs and pubs. I may have faults, but being unable to take the exact temperature of the nation’s rugby is not one of them. I can tell you that England rugby is hot. It has never been so big, so vivid.

And that is why the sadness. It hurt to watch England play without passion, joy, without organisation and with such rank basic skills. It hurt because they did not at any point in the past four years live up to their status as world champions. Everyone in England on Friday must have felt like a body without a head.

It is not like England rugby people to be suicidal, or to set fire to cities, but my thoughts turned to all the lads I coached and their noisy expectations, to the mates who had been buzzing for months, the new followers attracted after 2003, to the millions of good people in the game, to the fine clubs in England, to their gaudy and increasingly tribal fans and to their players of all nationalities, English included, who know how to win. And the bunch we all wanted to revere failed to score a point.

All that greatness, intent, balance, desire and that 2003 triumph had come to this – a team so bad that they could not be criticised for their tactics because there were none. A team that, at the end of a rare decent attack, worked the ball to a lock – on the left wing. Ben Kay kicked. The team had no plans. England quite obviously never expected to win and they did not know how to play.

Understandably, England were talking yesterday only of short-term recovery. They have a tournament to play out and a match against Samoa on Saturday to win – and if they play as they did against South Africa, then they will not win. At least they can bring in Jonny Wilkinson, Olly Barkley and Dan Hipkiss and you would be desperately disappointed if their own sense of humiliation did not make them at least an approximation of an international rugby team.

But if you assume that their world title is gone, then the debate must also surround the process by which such a magnificent team began to betray the strengths of its own country in a horrible, headlong and unrelieved decline. It is blame time. And, I promise you, scapegoat time.

In this regard, I can confidently predict that in public and private briefings this week and in the next few months – given from inside the England squad and at the RFU itself, there will be overt or at least tacit blame attached to the leading rugby clubs of England – the tale will run that the clubs tire out the players, do not produce enough England-qualified players and are too minded with their own fate, rather than the national cause.

Ignore it. Please ignore it. England had enough players, and they had them forever. They had them throughout the summer, they had them fresh and fit. They did nothing with them and for Ashton, or anyone speaking on his behalf, to pretend otherwise would be not only libellous to the clubs, but dangerous to the chances of an England revival. The clubs are fine, they produce players. It is what happens to them then that is England’s overwhelming problem.

Those in the England coaching team and squad must put up their hands. Whenever I see a team in a match of tumultuous significance playing neither with direction or passion, I assume automatically that their coaching staff are simply not getting through to them. It was only one incident, but the clueless play surrounding Kay’s ludicrous kick indicates a total lack of shape and that whatever messages were issued in the team room remained in the team room. Bearing in mind the enormous length of time that the England squad were together, you would at least expect unity and understanding.

If you contrast the sheer exuberance shown in this tournament by the likes of Argentina, South Africa, Tonga and even good old Portugal, you find another alarming aspect. England carried themselves like dullards, the spark of life and invention never existed in their play or demeanour. I have always been terrified when coaches place demands on their players for longer and longer periods, and when the team group becomes more and more secluded and united against outsiders, be they in the media, the supporters groups or the wide world itself. I am convinced that England have become far too iconoclastic. They have absorbed too much detail, too much rugby information and their sporting brains have blown a fuse. For goodness sake, let them loose, let them have contact with people and culture. Let them grow a trust of the outside world, not a sniffy pomposity.

And yet what of the backdrop to all this? All you have to do is compare the visionary, challenging, part-bonkers but title-winning regime of Sir Clive Woodward, and the plunging fall from credibility since he left. On Friday night, if England had passed the ball with the same beautiful facility that the RFU pass the buck, then they would have dominated South Africa with breathtaking rugby.

The union’s stewardship and running of the professional game in England, especially of the national team, has been a thunderous disgrace, relieved only for a relatively short period when Woodward came to the fore, because he was too brutally honest and too fierce a personality to put up with all the rubbish that previous coaches, plus Andy Robinson and Ashton, have put up with.

The RFU have made some appalling errors since the game went professional in 1995. First, they made not a single plan for the most profound change imaginable in any sport at any time. They then spent a few more years pompously trying to ward off new blood and new investors, who might actually have paid some of the new costs of the professional game. To this very day, the monolith that is the RFU confuses the raising of funds for the England game (something they do very well) with the business of running professional rugby on the field.

For years and even now, the RFU has had no structure and no individuals to run the pro game on the field and, even worse, they never realised it until too late. Consider their bungling. They made no serious effort to talk Woodward out of resigning, only months after he had won the World Cup – and how increasingly magnificent his achievements now look.

They compounded their error by promoting Robinson, Woodward’s No 2, even though he lacked the charisma and judgment for the role. They then appointed Ashton after Robinson’s sorry reign had seen results disintegrate. But again, they were appointing a man simply because he was there, rather than finding a vision. Flying by the seat of the pants is an appalling way to prepare an international rugby team and the results show it.

Unless the British Olympic Association can be paid enough money to allow Woodward to return to rugby, the prospects are grim. Rob Andrew, currently in charge of elite rugby – although he has never been given his head by RFU grandees – is struggling to make any sort of impact and he must now ask himself if he has the courage and the inclination to start the whole thing from scratch and appoint a new panel and new systems after the World Cup.

And just one more example. It is faintly hilarious and yet deeply disturbing that until very recently a regulation existed at Twickenham that demanded that any appointment of an England captain should be referred to the chief executive and the chairman – two men with good intentions and no ability in the field whatsoever.

English rugby, in one sense, is always looking too far forward. It is failing horrendously to address rugby next Saturday. They keep talking about developing players. Please, ignore precocious nippers. England must start winning and breed confidence and momentum.
Yesterday brought yet another England squad media opportunity in which everyone was asking us to have patience because an improvement was just around the corner.

As I say, it was hard to be angry, just sad to the point of tears. South Africa lived for the day, and the day was theirs. Jason Robinson’s retreating back as he left the field was the end of hope for the hopeless.

Making England wonderful again: 10 things to do to turn the team around for 2011

England must take radical action to avoid a repeat of the World Cup humiliation they suffered in Paris on Friday

1 Sir Clive Woodward to be approached to chair the new Professional Game Board, in control of all professional rugby in England

2 Martin Johnson to be appointed England team manager, to provide inspiration for a team whose hierarchy lacks clout

3 Graham Henry to be appointed head coach, heading a panel including Brian Ashton as attack coach and Shaun Edwards as defence coach

4 Rugby Football Union management board to be replaced by the Professional Game Board, with the RFU council remaining in charge of recreational rugby in England

5 Total concentration on winning every match. No more ‘development’ games with a bunch of kids. Con� dence and continuity has disappeared

6 The oppressive system in English age-group rugby, which selects youngsters far too early, to be dismantled

7 All academy operations to come under the umbrella of Premiership Rugby League, the major club body

8 No club owners to be allowed to sit on PGB, but the board must include club representatives, internationals of recent vintage and the RFU’s chief executive, Francis Baron

9 The England team to be restored to the community, rather than existing in a void. Make them visible to supporters who are prepared to folllow them through thick and thin

10 Restore the appetite for playing rugby in the hearts and minds of England players of the top echelon. England won the World Cup in 2003 with a team that enjoyed playing the game. The team for the World Cup in 2011 must be the same

How champions have defended their crown

1987: New Zealand The inaugural world champions had a run of 10 straight wins in World Cup games (1987-1991) and were powerful in between tournaments. They next lost a World Cup match in the 1991 semi� nals

1991: Australia They fared worse. They lost momentum after their 1991 victory, though retained a 60% winning record. They were deposed by Rob Andrew’s soaring drop-goal in the quarter� nals in South Africa

1995: South Africa In the aftermath of 1995 the Springboks faltered, enmeshed in political problems. But they still maintained a 70% record. They lost to Australia in extra-time of the semi� nals in the next tournament

1999: Australia The only nation to date that has taken the title twice. They dipped between tournaments, struggling in the TriNations, but were revived by 2003 and reached the � nal in their own country

2003: England Their defence has been by far the worst. They have slipped to seventh in the world rankings, lost two coaches, a team and momentum. Their win/loss record has dipped horrendously, to below 50%. A humiliating defence of their title

What the South African media said …

The Weekend Argus (Cape Town) Bok heroes keep England to zero ‘England won the toss and it was to be the last thing they won. The holders of the World Cup have become a shambles. Before the match they went through a warm-up routine that looked like a ‘handbags at 10 paces’ routine rather than a team gearing up for a match against one of the most physical teams in the world Shortly after the second half started, a brass band banged out, ‘Those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never end.’ For England, they have. For the Springboks, the tune has only just begun’