England legend claims Steve Borthwick ‘influenced’ by All Blacks ‘blueprint’ after Ireland’s attack became a ‘right mess’
England head coach Steve Borthwick and back-rowers Tom Curry and Ben Earl.
England men’s record cap holder Ben Youngs believes that Steve Borthwick has taken inspiration from New Zealand with his team selection for the Ireland clash.
The Red Rose head coach has made some bold calls for this weekend’s encounter at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.
Borthwick has effectively selected three opensides in his back-row for their Six Nations opener with the Curry twins, Tom and Ben, at flanker and Ben Earl lining up at number eight.
He has also handed a starting debut to wing Cadan Murley in the backline, but it is the loose forward combination which is causing the most debate.
Breakdown disruption
Youngs likes what he sees in the England back-row and reckons that they have been selected to go heavy at the breakdown and disrupt Ireland’s attack.
“They’ve obviously gone with both Curry brothers, which I love to see, and Ben Earl at number eight,” he said on the For The Love of Rugby podcast.
“Although this is a very dynamic back-row, what does it tell me? Ireland like to play a lot of phase attack, they go multi-phase and they try and pull you about with tight shapes.
“I’ve spoken about arrowheads before, so if you’ve got the pod of three forwards, you have the 10 in behind, they play out the back and try and get through little corridors.
“Straight away you’ve got three jackallers and also guys that can really bang, so they can stop momentum there and go hard at the ball.
“This is obviously to try and break Ireland’s flow and going through multi-phase. The best way to stop it is either through a dominant tackle, of course, the breakdown.
“New Zealand did a bit of a blueprint on Ireland in the Autumn Nations Series. For those that remember that game, the breakdown was ferocious. In fact, it was a mess – New Zealand made a right mess of Ireland’s ball – and that stopped the flow.
“I wonder how much of that has had a bit of an influence on that back-row.”
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The only concern for Youngs comes in the lineout with England only having two out-and-out jumpers in the starting XV in Maro Itoje and George Martin.
They have plenty of options on the bench, with Ollie Chessum and Chandler Cunningham-South both used in that role regularly, but Youngs realises the risk in picking a short loose trio.
England should ‘avoid lineouts’
“The only downside to this back-row that I can see is the lineout. Ireland’s lineout is very, very good, of course coached by the great Paul O’Connell,” he said.
“With that, England don’t have a great amount of height so I suspect that England will do a lot of four-man lineouts, five-man lineouts.
“Why would that be the case? Because you need to maximise the jumpers you have, which is only two, and of course Ireland have more than that.
“Will England kick the ball out from their 22? I don’t think so. I think what England will do is go to contestable kicks, try and compete, create a knock-on and create a contest because if it goes to a scrum, no issues.
“Avoid lineouts against Ireland because England don’t really have the jumpers to necessarily spoil their ball.”
