England will lay a whole graveyard full of ghosts to rest when they win the World Cup on Saturday. The country that gave organised team sport to the world during the 19th century had precious little to show for it in the 20th. One Soccer World Cup in 1966 and a string of failures in the other two sports that the English hold dear, cricket and rugby.
The last time the English cricket team held the Ashes they were still smouldering and, while the rugby team has dominated the Six Nations tournament for a decade, it seems that the settling of domestic quarrels does not satisfy anyone anymore.
In 1991 England got to the final against Australia on the back of a mighty pack and a kicking flyhalf, but if you think that déjà vu will continue all the way through to this Saturday’s result, think again.
In 1991 English rugby was just a couple of years into its restructuring. Coach Geoff Cooke set the wheels in motion by appointing the youngest player in the team, Will Carling, to the captaincy when he took the reins in 1989. By 1991 the team had a wonderfully settled look, but it had a glass jaw. It wanted to be loved.
So when David Campese trashed England for their conservative play on the way to the final, instead of turning inwards, the team turned outwards, threw the ball around and lost 12-6.
Captain and scrumhalf Nick Farr-Jones revealed subsequently that the one thing the Wallabies could find no solution to in their theory sessions were the sniping runs of his opposite number, Richard Hill. The Wallabies had to commit too many men to the breakdowns to hold their own against the English pack and there was no one left to police Hill.
On the day, Hill never broke once, flyhalf Rob Andrew hardly kicked for position and the English forwards won their battles in vain as the backs squandered possession time and again.
That will not happen this Saturday because although there clearly are parallels between the two English sides 12 years apart — and the amazing Jason Leonard played for both — in most of the important areas they are about as similar as chalk and cheese.
Despite increasingly large amounts of boot money, the 1991 side was genuinely amateur. Leonard was a carpenter, Andrew was an estate agent, locks Paul Ackford and Wade Dooley were policemen and Jonathan Webb at fullback was a surgeon.
This year’s model could be used as a blueprint for professionalism. No demeaning boot camps to turn them into psychopaths are needed here. This is a team that knows where it’s going, buys into the game plan and goes home with the bacon. This is a team that Rudolf Straeuli can only dream about.
But if Australia beat New Zealand in last week’s semifinal and they’ve got home advantage in a magnificent stadium populated by 83 000 fans, how come they’ve got no chance?
There are several reasons. The Wallabies have reached the final with a powder-puff tight five and have made up for their deficiencies by having David Lyons turn scrums into rucks by picking and driving from number eight. That won’t work against England.
Because they no longer have players like Campese and Tim Horan who could run around people, Wallaby coach Eddie Jones has become obsessed by the ball-carrying antics of Stirling Mortlock and of his rugby league converts — Lote Tuqiri and Wendell Sailor. Crash ball tactics won’t work against England.
When all else has failed, Jones has always been able to rely on the smash-and-grab tactics of the turnover king, Phil Waugh. That might have worked against England in the pool stages, but the real England turned up for the semifinal against France last week. Any team that can keep the ball away from a side as good as France for 40 minutes has nothing to fear from Australia.
So if you’re a rugby romantic without a reason to support either side, don’t watch on Saturday. If you do you’ll see how far England have come from the days where they were a bunch of gifted amateurs, to today’s clinical professionals.
As was stated before the tournament began, England are the best side in the world by a country mile. Only the pinheads on the board of the International Rugby Players Association who this week voted for New Zealand as the team of the year could fail to recognise that fact.