To upset hugely organised defensive lines, a turnover can be a gold pass to attacking success, and if you lose control of the breakdown, there’s a good chance you’ll lose the game.
As a painful example, take the 2019 World Cup semifinal, in Japan, when England beat the All Blacks 19-7.
Tom Curry was one of the English loose forward trio, with Billy Vunipola and Sam Underhill, who dominated the ball in the first half, setting up a 10-0 lead at halftime.
All Blacks coach Sir Steve Hansen picked lock Scott Barrett as blindside flanker and relegated the team’s best breakdown scrapper, Sam Cane, to the bench. The aim was to win more lineout ball. In a brilliant career, it was one of Hansen’s few mistakes.
Curry summed it up perfectly straight after the game. “When you pick tall lads like Scott [Barrett] there is an opportunity to work a bit lower. The big focus for us against New Zealand was getting attacking momentum going. It all starts at the breakdown.”
Hoping for excitement
The great opportunity for the first test of the Scott Robertson era is that it’ll be played on July 6 in perfect conditions, under a roof in Dunedin.
With the massive attacking potential available to the All Blacks, the chance of tries dominating, rather than goal kicks, doesn’t feel unrealistic.
And it would be wrong to assume that the only variations in England’s tactics will be whether to kick the ball high, or kick long.
In this year’s Six Nations, England finished third. But they beat the winners, Ireland, and under coach Steve Borthwick took risks you rarely see from the men in white.
England’s first five-eighths Marcus Smith, as former Welsh international Dan Biggar has said, “is a free spirit”.
“Every time he’s got the ball you have to think, ‘This guy could run’, so it’s a huge opportunity to free up the guys outside him,” Biggar said.
If Marcus Smith and Damian McKenzie are facing each other in Dunedin, the prospect of two electrifying runners in the 10 jerseys, playing with a dry ball on a good surface, has the potential to be a rugby purist’s dream.
On the other hand, if goal kicks are needed
McKenzie’s goal-kicking for the Chiefs has been exemplary this season, and the All Blacks have a long-range kicker up their sleeve in Jordie Barrett.
Anywhere, up to, and even past, his own team’s 10-metre line, is a potential goal for Barrett. In 2020, he kicked a 63-metre penalty in Buenos Aires for the Hurricanes, which may have been the longest successful penalty ever by a New Zealander.
The back story goes on forever
The unsinkable Eddie Jones is back on the international scene, again in charge of Japan, who England play in Tokyo on June 22, en route to New Zealand.
England’s coach Borthwick was Jones’ assistant coach when Jones coached England for seven years, before Jones was sacked nine months before the 2023 World Cup.
Never, ever short of a quote, Jones, who jumped to the Wallabies for their disastrous ′23 Cup campaign, graciously suggested after the Cup was over that England hadn’t improved under Borthwick, and had “gone back to bread and butter English rugby”.
Look again to the front row for clever thinking
Former All Blacks hooker Corey Flynn will be assisting the current squad with lineout throwing. He’s obviously an expert in the field, and I can personally vouch for his all-round intellect.
For several seasons from 2019 I sat on the print press bench in Christchurch at the Crusaders’ home games alongside Newstalk ZB’s commentary team. I firmly believe there were nights when it was the coldest spot I’ve ever reported on rugby from, and I have shivered at Murrayfield in Scotland and the hellhole that was Athletic Park in Wellington.
The only person who didn’t feel the cold in Christchurch was Flynn. On most nights he’d open his bag, haul out an electric blanket, plug the cord into sockets provided to charge laptops, and offer on air opinions without a trace of chattering teeth.
