Rugby Union may be a much-changed game but there are still few better ways of opening up a defence than a well-timed pass allied to an incisive running-line.
Unfortunately for England the absence of this classic combination from their repertoire against New Zealand was as noticeable as the demolished south stand at Twickenham and largely accounted for the failure to achieve what would have been only their seventh win in 100 years of Tests against the All Blacks.
Instead the Tri-Nations champions, who played the final 23 minutes of Saturday’s Test with 14 men after three successive yellow cards, held on for a 23-19 victory.
England’s forwards may not have been as dominant as in last week’s 26-16 defeat of Australia but, against the far greater threat of the New Zealand pack, they still gave the men behind them enough possession to win the game.
However, England’s backs rarely looked like scoring a try, even when the visitors, 38-point victors over Wales and Ireland, were a man short.
It was England’s pack who scored their lone try, captain Martin Corry going over from a maul off a five metre lineout. New Zealand though didn’t fall for the trick a second time, no matter how often England tried it.
They hit back thanks to a fine exchange between Daniel Carter and captain Tana Umaga, the fly-half running at the gap between number eight Corry and hooker Steve Thompson before releasing the centre, who had cut back on a sharp angle, with a deft pass.
It was a vivid demonstration of the difference between the two sides.
By then England had already delivered several passes well-above chest height, the receiver forced to waste valuable seconds re-adjusting when he ought to have been running onto the ball at full-tilt.
It was not an auspicious day for England fly-half Charlie Hodgson, who has a reputation as a creative playmaker. Often unfavourably compared with World Cup-winning hero Jonny Wilkinson, here he found himself upstaged by Carter.
True, Hodgson had to work with a fair amount of slow ball, the enemy of a running game. But England knew this was likely to be the case and yet their backs couldn’t even be accused of trying something which went wrong.
For Stuart Barnes, one of the most creative of recent English fly-halves, whose Test career was limited to 10 caps because of the presence of the more prosaic Rob Andrew, it was all too much as he dissected the performance of centres Mike Tindall and Jamie Noon, as well as that of left wing Ben Cohen, in his column for Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper.
”There is no empathy between them and no sense whatsoever of spatial awareness. When Carter and Umaga run they are luring defenders into the positions they want them to be. This English trio run straight at their opposing men.
”There is nothing wrong with direct attacking play but it has to be merged with more intelligence than England have displayed in the last fortnight.”
England coach Andy Robinson, a team-mate of Barnes’s at Bath during the club’s glory days of the 1980s, could use next week’s game against second-tier nation Samoa to give the likes of Gloucester’s elusive James Simpson-Daniel and Leicester’s Ollie Smith a chance to star in midfield.
Elsewhere, more history beckons for the All Blacks on their centenary tour of the British Isles. If they beat Scotland this coming Saturday they will become only the second New Zealand side (the 1978 team was the first) to complete a Grand Slam.
Meanwhile, with the 2007 World Cup in France approaching, Australia have major worries over their pack, England their backs.
New Zealand, who haven’t won the World Cup since capturing the inaugural edition of the tournament in 1987, have the ”worry” of ensuring they haven’t yet again peaked too soon. Some problem. – Sapa-AFP