In retrospect, I am disappointed with George Ford. To be honest, I am equally disappointed with myself. In the week leading to England’s Calcutta Cup loss, the England fly half explained the rationale behind this version of the territorial kicking game and just about convinced me of the one-dimensional game plan.
He dismissed the “kick for the sake of kicking, no other thoughts” strategy that scarred the end of the Eddie Jones era and the start of Steve Borthwick’s reign. There has to be a purpose to work hard for possession only to give it away. Ford laid the reasoning out. Kick to force territorial supremacy and utilise that territory with accurate attacking play.
It is the South African way, and when it works it makes eminent sense. When it works. There’s the rub. Ford might as well have told Scotland the English plan. Finn Russell and friends waited in ambush. England had travelled a lesser distance than we perhaps believed. Ford illustrated the game plan. It was either stupid or arrogant to explain it before playing in Edinburgh. Oh, England were complacent and anything but clever.
Smith may be a match-loser in some critics’ eyes but he has the chutzpah to turn a game around
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Ford is one of the smartest rugby brains out there, but the definitive game plan thought into reality as a template — not for a match but an entire modus operandi — is dumb. It’s old England. Maro Itoje’s men didn’t know what Scotland had up their sleeves while the home side watched the Wales match and the soon-to-be-repeated tactics.
England were solid against the worst Wales team in history and thought a replication would suffice against a Scotland side that lost in Rome in awful conditions. Italy, as well as Scotland, were dismissed, and so England selected a side geared towards the much-heralded pre-match plan, the same one that prevailed against woeful Wales.
It was a team set up to make changes if, say, Ford was injured or off form. In the eventuality, he was neither. He wasn’t bad, he was just so very obvious. But what if the solitary game plan went wrong, what then? Fin Smith is a good fly half, but he is not the sort of player who can grab a game and change it with individual chutzpah. England simply do not produce the Northampton Saints shape.
Smith was on the bench to fit into the system. If England had an alternative, Northampton-based game plan, his place among the replacements would have been justifiable. However, England are not, for better or worse, the Saints.
Ford, left, brings structure and game-management to England, while Smith can think outside the box
ASHLEY WESTERN/COLORSPORT/SHUTTERSTOCK
What they were, was predictable. What Borthwick has done before the Ireland match is include someone on the bench who can tear up the game plan if it’s going wrong and produce something different with an extra gear in attack. Someone who can turn the game plan into another one, replete with different gears.
In this instance, with the structured Ford quite rightly selected to start and atone for his predictability (and he has the passing game to shock an Ireland team prepared for an array of kicks, both long and high) that someone is Marcus Smith. Is the Harlequins fly half in great form this season? Most definitely not.
But is he capable of forcing a defence to change its pattern with his capacity to run, pass and kick? He certainly is. On the face of it, this is a brave selection for the bench, although it helps that he can also play full back if Borthwick cannot bring himself to replace Ford, his fly-half kingpin. But Borthwick must not think that way. Not having given himself the option.
Marcus Smith is a player with overdrive. His selection is worth the gamble for the simple reason that it is less of a risk than having the other Smith on the bench. Let’s stick with the word “gamble”. What is a selection gamble is to have no one with the ability to change the game. If a team picks a dashing Marcus Smith sort to start at No10, the risk is not to have a steadier presence on the bench.
Indeed, in 2022 Marcus Smith made his Six Nations debut at Murrayfield. He overcame a nervy start and dominated the second half, with his blind-side try an appropriate reward as he played England on to the front foot and into a seven-point lead. Jones made a terrible error to substitute Smith for none other than Ford. The plan was to close the game out but, with momentum lost, Scotland surged into the lead and England had no one to swing the game back their way.
Van Poortvliet’s selection as a replacement scrum half suggests England won’t let themselves get caught out again
ADAM DAVY/PA WIRE
As Ford’s thought process behind the charged-down drop-goal last week illustrated, here is a manager of a match. Marcus Smith is a match-winner; or, his critics might say, a match-loser. But did England — stuck in their turgid game plan — ever need those fabulous feet and sleight of hands in Edinburgh this year.
If England are dominant, they may not use Marcus Smith. If Ireland cannot scrummage their way on to the front foot, the England game plan may suffice. However, if the visiting side are squeezed by the England pack, Marcus Smith may be the preferable counterattacker over Freddie Steward from full back.
The decision to select Jack van Poortvliet as the replacement No9 over the territorial kicking game of Ben Spencer suggests this England team will not be caught out if they have to chase the game as they did in Edinburgh. It is a tough call on Spencer, the in-form Bath man, but there is logic in the selection of the hard-running Leicester Tigers scrum half.
It is not a matter of which Smith is the superior No10. It is about which one is suited to chase the game. Unquestionably that is Marcus Smith. The selection for Edinburgh set the tone for the team’s performance. Complacent, arrogant in its trust in the game plan, and devoid of a No10 to play what he sees and not what he believes in; England were as flawed as Scotland were fabulous.
Marcus Smith’s selection indicates England will face Ireland with more options than blind faith in their prescribed game plan.
England v Ireland
Twickenham
Saturday, 2.10pm
TV ITV