Loose Pass: Victory sips and falling curtains; the highs and lows of the Six Nations and its protagonists
The Calcutta Cup win was especially sweet for Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend.
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with the highs and lows of the Six Nations and its protagonists…
What a difference a week makes…
Last week we opened with the description and potential meanings behind the distant, pensive stare. So it seems only fair to return to Gregor Townsend’s facial expressions as an opener this week.
No distant stare this time, no tempest of conflicting thoughts running through the motionless head. This time it was also a stare, but just perceptibly different. The focus was on the English posts as team-mates swarmed over Huw Jones in delight. The eyes were softer. Crinkles around the edges. The onset of a very slight smile. Minor differences, but as he raised his SRU cup to his lips, these differences combined to create as smug a victory sip as can have been seen in proud Edward’s land.
Townsend’s time is not yet up then, and he’ll have bought some more with that outstanding win. Wales are next up, a Six Nations game where Scotland ought to enjoy themselves. Yet as Loose Pass pointed out last week, beating England alone is not enough for Scotland fans any more; in this tournament it might easily only be enough for Scotland to finish fifth. Nor will beating Wales be enough. But Ireland are in an awkward moment and although France are really, really good, there is a history of them coming undone in Edinburgh.
Scotland hit by triple injury blow as Calcutta Cup heroes return to their clubs
Both might be a stretch. But even winning one of those would go a long way to assuaging the Scottish fans still wary that their team and its coach cannot raise their game to the same heights against anybody else.
…in the north and the south…
Meanwhile, back England go to the video room, with questions hanging over the coaching staff, but also over the head of George Ford.
Loose Pass was reminded, as debate began on some post-match chat threads about the Ford/Smith/Smith conundrum, of the time-honoured debate around who the best fly-half ever is (apart from DC of course). Many believe it is Jonny Wilkinson, for example, many fewer agree with Loose Pass that Stephen Larkham’s name deserves to at least be in that conversation.
But for Ford to win man of the match last week against Wales felt a little too easy of an accolade. He was playing behind a pack that was dominant in pretty much every aspect, in the same way as the pack Wilkinson played behind, for the large part, was. Of course, a fly-half still does have to play well, but when you’ve got extra seconds of time and space, it does ease that task. And did he dazzle in the manner of Matthieu Jalibert, for example? Not really.
Larkham rarely enjoyed playing behind such a pack, yet still steered Australia through a golden era, which is why I think he was so good. Interestingly, it was only at Toulon where Wilkinson began to be consistently outstanding regardless of whether his pack was dominant or not.
But back to the point: Saturday’s game was one in which Ford would have confirmed his excellence in his current late-career bloom. He did not do so. Some poor execution, a telegraphed drop goal attempt – contextually odd too, as it would have brought England only to within eight points – and some fairly average kicking left England looking short of inspiration in the face of an onslaught. That’s by no means only Ford’s fault, but despite his good form, England remain short of a fly-half for all situations.
…over the Channel it’s more like a year…
And while on that subject of fly-halves for all situations, it’s entirely possible that France has two of them.
15 months after stropping out of the squad when he wasn’t picked to face the All Blacks, after enduring months of infuriating thigh problems, and one year after again being dropped after a sub-par performance against England, Jalibert has finally begun to perform on the international stage as well.
Brilliant against Ireland as well as against Wales, he’s showing it all – including a steely tackling side to his game. Most interestingly, his renaissance has come as Antoine Dupont continues to be less prominent in attack.
Many players lose half a yard after an ACL injury and it is possible Dupont has suffered just that. And where earlier it was often he who ran the show, supported by the more placid Romain Ntamack at fly-half, Dupont has been notably quieter – by his own standards at least – in the two opening games.
Has it allowed Jalibert to thrive? Possibly. His club success is served up to him by the rock-solid Maxime Lucu, whose kicking game and accuracy allows Jalibert time and space to flourish. Dupont is now offering similar, and Jalibert is thriving upon it.
…and nobody knows how long it might take in Ireland…
Where to next for Ireland? Certainly a trip to Twickenham would have been the sort of challenge Ireland teams of the past might have welcomed, but nothing seems certain in Dublin any more.
Not that Italy do not deserve props, so to speak, for their display, but even rotated Ireland teams in the past have played as though sure of their lines and on the same page, something at times conspicuously absent from Saturday’s stodgy win.
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Warning signs of an over-reliance on an old guard were there at the last World Cup, while the mutterings of an over-reliance on Leinster within Ireland have grown louder and louder over the past two years. Granted, there’d be an element of fatigue within a team which provided so many of July and August’s Lions, but the mistakes on Saturday were not necessarily of a tired team.
Defeat against England would feel slightly like the curtain coming down on an era of Irish rugby; looking at the results of the shadow and youth teams, it might be a while before the next show.