England great’s verdict on ‘completely underrated skill’ Henry Arundell got wrong and what the legacy of his red card will be
Retired England great Anthony Watson, inset, has shared his views on last Saturday's Henry Arundell card trouble
England great Anthony Watson has run the rule over Henry Arundell’s red card in last Saturday’s Calcutta Cup battering away to Scotland.
The English winger was initially yellow carded for what was deemed to be cynical foul play at an eighth minute breakdown when trying to jackal for the ball on Rory Darge after tackling him to the ground.
Arundell returned from that sin-binning to score his fourth try of the championship after the Round One hat-trick at home to Wales, but his match ended before the interval as he copped a second yellow card which was soon upgraded to a 20-minute red card by the foul play review officer for his ugly looking 37th-minute collision with the aerial Kyle Steyn.
The No.11’s indiscipline in his 13th Test appearance meant England were reduced to 14 players for 30 minutes of the Six Nations Round Two match and his absence told as Steve Borthwick’s side needed a late consolation score to give the result a flattering 31-20 gloss when the margin of defeat was set to be a much fairer 18 points.
“A lot of chat about that decision…”
Arundell is now set to attend a video conference disciplinary hearing on Tuesday and a resulting ban would confirm his unavailability for next Saturday’s Round Three match at home to Ireland.
England had gone to Scotland looking for a statement away win as eight of the victories on their 12-match winning streak had been at Allianz Stadium, but they were blown away in a desperate situation not helped by Arundell’s card troubles.
The post-mortem from the loss has been ongoing since Saturday night and Watson, the retired 56-cap England winger who went on two British and Irish Lions tours, has joined in the review, offering his verdict on the red-carding during an appearance on the For The Love Of Rugby show co-hosted by Ben Youngs and Dan Cole.
“There will be a lot of chat about that decision, about the two yellows,” said Youngs, teeing up his former teammate. “Talk to me. Is it naivety, is it just getting the timing wrong? What leads to that situation?”
Watson, who saw the yellow cards unfold in real time as he was at the match in Murrayfield, replied: “I don’t think you can look at any one of them in isolation because ultimately he put himself in the situation of the second one by getting a yellow card early doors.
“The first yellow as a bit harsh. Yes, it was line break from Scotland and he was coming around, but the ball has just squirted out. I’m not sure it was a straight up yellow card but ultimately these refs have to make decisions in very quick and high-pressure scenarios.
“The second one, and probably the most obvious one, it’s one hundred per cent a yellow card in terms of the decision making process that goes behind that. It’s an area of his game that has been challenged and he has improved significantly in that area.
“So he has really got out of the blocks and really wanted to try and get up in the air and compete in an important facet of the game but what you can’t do is have no awareness of where the opposition player is. You have almost got to get to where you think the ball is going to land, be three, four or five metres out from it and know you are going to take off from that point and get up in the air.
“That’s almost the safest thing you can do as a winger, be up in the air and trying to catch the ball. If you have lost all awareness of where the opposition players are and where the ball is going to land, you put yourself in a scenario like that.
“Ultimately it is a straight 100 per cent yellow. Look, he has put himself in that position with the greatest of intentions, but you cannot lose awareness of where the opposing player is.”
Watson, who spent most of his club career at Bath, the team the 23-year-old Arundell joined last summer from Racing 92, went on to explain what Arundell should have been trying to achieve when following Alex Mitchell’s box kick from near the 10-metre line to just outside the opposition 22.
“When I say awareness of where the opposition is, I mean before the kick’s gone up you know where the opposition winger is so you have an awareness of roughly how far away he is and you assume from tracking the ball where he is likely to jump – that is what I mean by awareness.
“You are never going to be looking up at the ball and seeing where he is because it is impossible. What you almost want to find in your mind is create a landing zone of where the ball is going to be and you know how far away from that landing zone I have to jump to be able to compete for the ball, but you don’t go and stand in the landing zone.
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“You don’t stand there whilst looking at the ball. That’s the red zone, so that is what I mean by awareness, understanding where the opposition winger is going to be before, where he is likely to be jumping from and where you need to be to be able to compete.
“It’s a completely underrated skill because five, 10 years ago, all you would do at the end of training is catch box kicks and catch kicks almost on the receiving end. Very rarely did we practice chasing kicks and getting up in the air and competing.
“But now it’s an undeniably fundamental piece of the game but it’s a different skill and you have to work on that week in week out to be comfortable knowing where you want to take off from, which leg you’re taking off from, what your knee is doing, how high your hand is.
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“It’s completely different to just receiving the ball and so you have got to work on it and be comfortable to know when you put yourself in situations like that which side you want to come from. It’s a nuanced skill because some guys like to change from the right side, even if they are on the left wing they want to be coming from the right side of the ruck to get up the air.
“Some guys what to stay right on the edge, avoid all the people and just get up that way. You’ve just got to keep hammering the skill. I would definitely put some of that to his decision making, not finding himself in that position as much as a winger with 40 caps might do.
“He’ll be better for it, that’s the one thing I will say, and I know it’s a cliché that you learn from all the experiences but he will be 100 per cent better for that. He’ll know that next time I am in a situation like that, hopefully he doesn’t get a previous yellow but even still you just can’t catch yourself underneath someone.”
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