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Sam Burgess should not have been in the starting XV against Wales. He should not have been in the match-day squad. Indeed, he should not be in England’s World Cup squad. Period.
Burgess is still only learning to play rugby, and he has hardly begun to learn how to play in the centre.
To start that process by throwing him into England’s biggest game since the last World Cup, inside a centre partner who was himself playing out of position, beggars belief.
Burgess did not have a good game. He had some perfectly adequate moments, but a few adequate moments do not a good game make. He was one of the main reasons, though not the only one, why England failed to turn the forwards’ dominance into a straightforward victory. Two other main reasons stood either side of him.
England now – at last – have three outside backs who can cause their opposition some real anxiety (though it is hard to escape the feeling that they got there more by accident than design), but decided to select a midfield that largely took them out of the game. It was notable that all the spark to and pace in England’s attack came through Ben Youngs at halfback, and when he departed the scene so too did any sense of English dynamism.
In the heat of the moment, there is understandably a circling of the wagons and a defence of the decision to play Burgess, but the further back you step, the more indefensible it all becomes. By the time the next World Cup rolls around Burgess may have become a giant of the game, but when folk recall his selection against Wales in 2015 they’ll do so with a rueful grin and a shake of the head.
And before anyone wheels out the old ‘what about Sonny Bill Williams’ canard, Williams played two years for Toulon and a season for Canterbury before he was adjudged fit for All Black selection. And even then he took a while to find his feet.
It is, however, clearly unreasonable to blame Burgess. Like all players, he’ll put his hand up and do his best in the hope that he’ll be picked.
The more curious issue to consider is: why was Burgess picked? And, while we’re at it, why was Brad Barritt picked, why was Owen Farrell picked?
We are told that it was horses for courses, that England needed to meet the Red Dragons’ anticipated fire with their own, and that Farrell-Burgess-Barritt would stop the Welsh back-line in their Jamie-Roberts-led tracks.
Putting the magnificently negative nature of this justification to one side, Spiro Zavos’ recent reference to the influence of backs coach Andy Farrell struck me as astute. Farrell senior comes from a league background, before moving to rugby as a flanker-cum-inside-centre (sound familiar?), and is the father of Owen.
It is not hard to imagine that, at least in the back of Farrell’s brain, a combination of his own son and a rugby league great (in his own image) at 10 and 12 respectively was appealing.
But all this does is lead us straight on to another, even more basic, why?
Why was Andy Farrell given this position of influence. And why is he still in this position? How did he ever become an England coach after just five or six years in the game in total, and just a couple of years coaching at Saracens? How has he continued in this position for the four years since, when he has overseen an English back-line that has on occasion delivered but has all too often looked content ploughing its own furrow of mediocrity?
Solidity and the ability to make a tackle have been lauded, while the ability to break or beat one, or to create space, appears to have been regarded as of secondary importance. Selections have been all over the shop and in some cases just downright odd. Remember All Blacks’ nemesis Manu Tuilagi getting moved to his point of irrelevance on the wing in the second Test between the two countries in 2014, or Billy Twelvetrees disappearing from the English team altogether on the basis of one failed offload while in attack in the same match, or Danny Cipriani being too flaky for England on an ongoing basis?
Think of when Owen Farrell was indispensable because of his tackling, his lion heart, his fighting spirit – as if those are the key qualities for a No.10, as if that is the position within which such qualities must reside for success.
And when finally, just as the make-up of the England back-line was starting to look promising (which, as mentioned above, appears to have happened more by chance than any grand scheme on the part of England’s coaches), an injury to Jonathan Joseph and the fear of Jamie Roberts turned everything to custard.
Why is this tolerated?
This all stems from decades of forward domination of the English game, and a skewed sense of what backs might be for – to the point where a backs coach will be chosen on the basis of defence, and retained despite an absence of attack.
Down the years there have been moments where a vaguely startled-looking ambition has appeared, and there has been the occasional exceptional individual whose sublime skills and a natural flair for the game shone through (Jeremy Guscott and Will Greenwood springing to mind), but these have been the exceptions proving the rule.
Jonny Wilkinson is far from irrelevant here. Celebrated beyond measure for tackling like a demon and kicking goals like a machine, to the point where creativity and the rest of the backline became a sideshow, in the end his misrerabilist inflation of craft to bombastic proportions left no room or desire for art, or pleasure, in English back play. And this has cast a long shadow, as can be seen in the debate about tactics, including Farrell versus George Ford, today.
So Andy Farrell mumbles and bumbles his backs along, delivering more of the same old. Yet instead of demanding more and better, the English rugby-supporting public take it as their lot in life, and raise their collective glass to another rolling maul, another thunderous tackle, another scrum penalty, another kick to the corner.
Burgess is back in the reserves on Saturday, making room for the fit-again Joseph, but Farrell Jr holds his place at 10. Again I ask: why?
Ford is, quite simply, a better fly-half – by some distance. And this week there is no Warrenball to combat, the Wallabies will be full of angles and cunning, rather than crash and bash; their inside backs combined don’t weigh as much as Jamie Roberts. The stated rationale behind Farrell’s selection against Wales is absent, and yet there he stands, resolute, competent, so very… staunch.
I suspect the real answer for Farrell’s selection has two related components beyond the familial connection. Stuart Lancaster might see it as an admission of fault if he were to bring Ford back, and admitting fault at this point in the campaign would be a delicate business (never mind that it would be straightforward to return to his horses-for-courses line). In addition, for this do-or-die game, England are reverting to type, they are not looking for a playmaker; it is with the tackler, the lion heart, the fierce spirit, that salvation rests.
An example of how this reversion also manifests itself on a smaller scale can be seen in the England vs All Blacks Test at Twickenham towards the end of 2013. England started with all the ambition and width in the world, with Jonny May scoring a wonderful try when he embarrassed Conrad Smith and Israel Dagg, skinning them on the outside. But then, as the All Blacks worked their way back into the match, and the pressure mounted, England shrunk into themselves, until in the last quarter of the game they were trying to rolling maul their way to victory from deep in their own half.
All this is not to say that England can’t win this weekend, but if they do it will be in spite, not because, of their understanding of back-play and their selection policy. England are big and mean and ugly enough (I mean this in a good way) to beat anyone on their day. Also, Australia could be well and truly undercooked on Saturday, having played very little meaningful rugby in the last two months, whereas England are battle-hardened and desperate, which counts for a lot.
If Romain Poite decides that Joe Marler is scrummaging straight and England get on top of Australia in the tight (though note this is not quite the given it once was), and if the Australian goal-kicking continues on its recent erratic path, then it could still prove a long day at the office for Michael Cheika and his troops.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.