Expert Witness: Nick Easter on his hopes for England

David Skippers

With the 2020 Autumn Nations Cup entering its opening round, this week’s Expert Witness sees the return of former England international back-rower Nick Easter to discuss his country’s fixtures and form moving into the tournament.

The next four weeks of rugby switches back to the international arena with the inaugural Autumn Nations Cup, an innovative competition that’s designed to plug the holes left by the cancellation of the usual November Test series and one that’s certain to capture the interest of the rugby watching public.

With England’s group featuring their old foes, Ireland and Wales, their immediate task is overcoming the physical presence of the emerging Georgia at Twickenham this Saturday.

Identity crisis

Eddie Jones recently remarked that his vision for his team identity was to play a purely English brand of rugby, but, with the top Premiership sides offering a contrast in the manner in which they deliver their strategies, one might be forgiven for wondering what that English brand actually means.

With Exeter, Bath and Sale committed to phase play power-based games, Bristol and Wasps play a much more broken-field running style that comes from turnover and disruption and Easter believes that the key to English success is taking the best from both worlds to ensure success.

CLICK HERE FOR ALL YOUR ENGLAND RUGBY MERCHANDISE

“The perfect English game is basically what we delivered in the first half of the Rugby World Cup semi-final against New Zealand in Japan last year; physical, in your face gainline breaking rugby based upon a solid set-piece, with a kicking game based upon more than one receiver,” he explained.

“The only time England have struggled in recent times is in the World Cup final and versus France in Paris, in each case games where we could not break down the gainline and where we were beaten at the set-piece. But even then, a key takeout of those games is that the tries we conceded were primarily from turnover or lost ball when attacking and lost possession through the intensity of the opposition in their own defence.

“Very few sides take England’s defence apart off primary or phase possession; if we concede it’s generally long field tries from a turnover or penalty,” concluded Easter.

Double shock

“We’ve also had the luxury for some time of being able to play a number of world class receivers in the same side. If you break down the preferred English way, we often see Elliot Daly, Owen Farrell and George Ford in the same team. That gives you three playmakers, all adept with boot, pass and break, able to dictate,” said Easter.

“When you get scrums or rucks with wide blindsides, this approach really comes into its own and you’ll see them line up in a two and one pod formation split either side behind the scrum. Depending on the success of the scrum, which ideally will be a dominant push on the tighthead side which removes two back-rowers from the opposition defence, then one will join two or two will join one, to create fast numerical mis-matches, with the non-used player literally a decoy to hold and pause the opposition rush defence. If this is done at pace, very few sides are capable of reacting to defend in real time this change in numbers and variety of attacking points.

“The other by-product of this is the exit options it offers England. No side in world rugby plays more outside their own red zone than England does; their ability to control that middle third of the pitch with variety of collision, pass and kick means they’re playing away from areas where the opposition can hurt them.

“The most impressive thing in recent times has been how little pressure they get under in that middle third or their own half and their ability to play in the right areas is as good as anyone around.

“As an aside, I noted with amusement that the British & Irish Lions team selection app was out this week and it was staggering to note how few fan selected sides featured George Ford, an international fly-half with a 70 per cent win ratio. Whilst occasionally he can be exposed physically, when he has ball in hand Fordy’s quality of catch/pass/kick decision making is a class above anything else England have right now. His speed of thought in making those decisions whilst playing right on the gainline is exemplary and I think, at times, we totally overlook the man’s ability and achievements,” he concluded.

Lovely but lethal

“It’s lovely for all the fans of growing the game in Europe that Georgia are part of this tournament. They’ll come armed to Twickenham with a lethal scrummage and powerful maul game, but outside of that, I’m not sure how they’ll be able to cope with England’s pace and power.

“There’s the old cliché of getting drawn into an arm wrestle here and that’s to be avoided at all costs. The key is early width; use two pass rugby with fast hands into the wide channels to get the big Georgians around the park. There will be a big conditioning difference in England’s favour and getting those heavy lads into the wide spaces will naturally tire them and open up key numerical mismatches. We call this ‘edge rugby’ – pass on the edge, play on the edge, get the ball onto the edges of the pitch,” explained Easter.

“In terms of selection, I’d be happy to see a youngster such as Jacob Umaga given a shot, but I do want to see him fit into that existing two/one receiver structure I alluded to. At his best, he’s an instinctive player and running threat that’s very comfortable playing right in the faces of a big defence. His game management is secondary to his attacking instinct, but that’s when the structure works, with Owen Farrell at second receiver to assist with the pragmatic application of the team plans.

“For this game, a mobile, pace-based back-row would aid England enormously. Jack Willis, Ben Earl (eight) and Tom Curry would form one of the best-balanced options we have and what they’ll do is attack and use gas, something that troubles even the best sides. We also have the consummate all-round abilities of my fellow Falcon, Mark Wilson, and the power of Sam Underhill to add into the mix.

“Recently, Eddie has mentioned hybrid players and his vision of anyone fitting into any role. Now, whilst I’m happy to go on record as saying Henry Slade is somewhat unlikely to make it as an international tighthead, I do get what Jones is saying here, and both Curry and Earl could add a lot of value joining the backline as integral attacking components. As an example, I mused the other day about the vision of Joe Cokanasiga joining the lineout, Earl standing in the blindside wing position and how a play could be engineered using Joe’s height in the jump with Ben’s blistering pace and power coming right down that narrow side to completely change the dynamic of a game,” added Easter.

“What I do see this three or four Tests as is an opportunity to try these things, and I would predict us winning by a 45-point margin on Saturday. But to return to my opening point, it has to be with players fitting into a vision and structure rather than changing the things that have worked. Let’s keep the depth of squad we have; the likes of Will Stuart and Jonny Hill are adding a great deal of competition but they’re able to fit in to that structure.

“If we do that, we’ll have a great November.”

Nick Easter played 54 times for England and scored 13 tries, including two hat-tricks, one in his final appearance for England in the 2015 World Cup. A skillful number eight with cricketer’s hands, he played 281 games for Harlequins, his offloading and distribution being hallmarks of a rounded game. Nick is now defence coach for Newcastle Falcons.

by James While

 

England