It wasn’t just that Freddie Steward missed a few high-profile tackles a year or so ago; it was the manner in which he was left hopelessly sprawled on the turf of Twickenham and Dublin respectively.
There is no shame being bamboozled by Cheslin Kolbe, one on one. But then Grant Williams, the rapid and beautifully balanced Springbok scrum half, had him falling over his own feet in the same game. Steward has acknowledged the two non-tackles could have amounted to the difference between the two sides as South Africa beat England by nine points (29-20).
Next up was a formidable Six Nations visit to Ireland in February, which was made no easier as Jamison Gibson-Park showed Steward the old soft-shoe shuffle as Ireland prevailed 27-22. Pick a full back who can make a one-on-one tackle and England are, ergo, a winning side.
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It wasn’t the misses that concerned me as much as the nature of the failures. It looked terrible. The instinctive reaction is to criticise a full back. Steward, in this very newspaper went on to berate himself. But those of us in the press box — and the man himself — were maybe a little harsh on him.
Against the fleetest-footed internationals, who are running in open space, to make the tackle is a bonus. The attacker has all the advantages. He knows which direction he is heading before the defender; the extra split-second makes all the difference. Yes, at 6ft 5in, Steward can look — and sometimes be — cumbersome. His rejuvenated form isn’t without the odd clumsy missed tackle in recent weeks. He’s a hard worker who will do everything to cut out the high-profile missed tackles, but it is a part of who and what he is as a rugby player.
The key to selecting him — or not — is whether his strengths outweigh his weaknesses. And they do, by a substantial margin. He has a point of difference to his game. He is one of the finest aerial performers in world rugby. While he is rarely exposed to flying finishers more than once a game, he is perpetually embroiled in the furious battle of the skies. His benefit is enormous. He is a rock beneath the old fashioned “up and under”. Not just beneath the opposition kicks — he is a magnificent chaser. It is a regular sight to see him chasing the ball downfield and claiming the catch from his opposing full back. This is priceless ball — midfield, just outside the opposition 22 with a retreating defence. A team who know what to do with quick ball are quids in.
Steward’s aerial ability is as effective in attack as it is in defence
CRAIG MERCER/ ALAMY LIVE NEWS
Unfortunately, in Borthwick’s early years, England often failed to extricate themselves from the oppressive weight of the game plan. Now they are playing at pace, with much more flexibility, Steward’s chase and regathering skills are of enormous value.
As an aside, I hope George Ford, who is starting at fly half against Australia on Saturday, will resist his trademark spiral bomb while in the same team as the Leicester Tigers full back. The whole point of the kick is to make it harder for the opponent to catch. If Steward is clearly beating the opposing catcher, it is daft to make the clean catch more difficult for a team-mate.
The quality of what Steward does in the air more than eclipses his present defensive deficiency. But the reality is that every missed tackle by a full back is an error on the part of the defensive system. A year ago England didn’t know whether to rush or drift. It was easy to blame Steward for collective woes.
Steward has always been a potent attacker, but only recently has he added the ability to find that final pass to a team-mate
DAVID ROGERS/GETTY IMAGES
If there was a good reason to drop him from the Test team, it wasn’t those obvious missed tackles, it was the fundamental flaws in his ball-carrying. He is, and has always been, a potent carrier but — like the brave and in many ways brilliant Mike Brown — the final pass wasn’t there, the ruthless running line to create space for the winger to sprint in with millimetres to spare. That is the unforgivable fault of a full back.
There are still missed tackles and the odd hook or sliced Steward kick, but what has changed is his threat as an attacker. Some of the lines he is picking are wonderful. He is a tough man to stop from five metres out, a close-range threat. Yet it has been the improved “assistance” of his game that has caught the eye. Against Sale Sharks last week he played fundamental roles in two Adam Radwan tries.
Steward played the final pass for Radwan to score against Sale
For the first of them, he drifted away from a miss-pass — drawing Sale’s wide defence into his orbit — before throwing a perfect long pass off his left hand into the winger’s waiting hands. Sublime. Steward looked to have overrun his own midfield attack for the second Radwan score, but he cleverly bought time with some footwork that feinted infield to fix Sale’s defensive line. All very neat. The take and give was — again — precise and that was all a flyer like the Leicester winger needed.
Throughout much of the Borthwick era, England have failed to turn opportunities into tries. Steward was a part of this mess but he has turned himself into an accomplished player. His aerial skills and his attacking improvements are probably worth more points to England than his occasional missed tackle, an aspect you can be sure he will be trying to improve.
England’s first-choice full back in recent times has been the injury-plagued George Furbank. The Northampton Saints man is an intelligent full back/fly half, but does he have that extra element to his game to take England to World Cup glory? That question — “Can x, y, z make a difference?” — is there in the background every time a side is selected between now and Australia 2027.
Furbank, 29, fits into Borthwick’s plans for multi-faceted performers, but Steward has that point of difference — chasing kicks, drifting to the wing to catch and score from cross-kicks, positioning himself on the blind-side wing to guarantee England possession from clearance box-kicks.
Unfortunately for him, his and his team-mates’ lack of precision has ensured previous opportunities created by aerial pressure were not converted into tries frequently enough. If Steward misses one try-saving tackle and sets up two tries per game, he will remain an intrinsic part of the England rugby road trip bound for Australia 2027 and, who knows, even possible glory.
England v Australia
Twickenham
Saturday, 3.10pm
TV TNT Sports