England rugby coach Clive Woodward has promised his side will return to form against Wales at Twickenham this weekend.
Ireland ended the world champions’ 22 Test match unbeaten home run last time out, a record stretching back to 1999, and their 19-13 win also smashed England’s hopes of back-to-back Six Nations Grand Slams.
England has also been dogged by a series of off-field problems including revelations that some of the Twickenham tickets handed out to their players had ended up on the black market.
”There’s been a lot going on behind the scenes and that’s why we deserved to get beat by Ireland,” said Woodward at the squad’s training base in Bagshot, England.
”We’ve set impeccable standards off and on the pitch, that’s why we are in the situation we are in. I won’t allow those standards to slip again. The players are under no illusions in terms of the standards I expect everyone to set from me downwards.”
England was overwhelmed in the lineout by Ireland, losing 11 of their own throws.
So poor was the throwing-in of World Cup-winning hooker Steve Thompson, substituted in the second half, he admitted on Tuesday he feared being axed.
”There was a little bit of disbelief from myself because I know how competitive this team is. But I am very happy that the coaches have stuck by me. Everything that could possibly go wrong against Ireland did — the throwing, the lifting, and the calls. Sometimes you have to stand up and be responsible. It would be easy to hide behind each other but we don’t do that in this team,” explained Thompson, the Northampton forward.
Wales gave England a fright before losing their World Cup quarterfinal 28-17 when the teams last met, in Brisbane in November, and scored three tries in the process.
England defence coach Phil Larder admitted: ”Wales have got a pretty exciting team and the first thing we learned was not to kick badly to them. If we kick badly and don’t chase well they’ll embarrass us.”
Wales were beaten 29-22 by tournament leaders France in their previous match — their second defeat in three Six Nations games so far this season.
Their scrum in that match was as bad as England’s lineout against Ireland and Woodward said: ”When the Welsh team gets a good platform going at scrum-time they play very well.
”But when you can disrupt them there, as happened last time, they haven’t quite got that platform to play off. It’s a key part of the game.”
Saturday’s match will be Wales coach Steve Hansen’s penultimate game in charge before he returns to his native New Zealand to become a member of All Blacks supremo, and Wales’s predecessor, Graham Henry’s back-room staff.
The announcement of Mike Ruddock — who did not even initially apply for the job — as Hansen’s replacement instead of long-time front-runner and Llanelli chief Gareth Jenkins created huge controversy in Wales.
Asked for his views on the subject Woodward sidestepped the issue as deftly as you might expect from a former England and British Lions centre.
”To be frank, I’ve got no thoughts,” said Woodward, coach of next year’s Lions tour of New Zealand.
”I’ve got enough problems trying to sort my own little controversies out here without getting involved in the Welsh controversy if it is a controversy. We all know Jenkins is a great coach and I think we are all generally surprised. But apart from that I don’t pick the Welsh coach.” – Sapa-AFP