England will take out the Wallabies by a whisker

It is no exaggeration to say Australia have been caught short; Eddie Jones came home aiming for the whitewash but he was not taken as seriously as he should have been.

I now suspect we will witness an England team, growing with confidence, suffocate their opposition. The Australian team will panic and throw it away.

It will not be easy, this game will be a closer result than the last, the winner getting there by a point or two. But I see England winning after coming off better in the following key areas.

Contact
For the last few years, the contact area has been the domain of the lone jackal, epitomised by players such as Francois Louw, Richie McCaw and David Pocock, but this year has seen the rise of the wolf-pack turnover.

For England no one man is given responsibility for stealing the ball, instead that job has been compartmentalised and now players have different responsibilities in order to ensure their team gains possession.

To begin with, the job of the first two men arriving, typically a combination of second row or backrow, at the contact area is to drive over the ball.

Once you get defensive players past the ball, you can guarantee to slow possession down. In turn, picking the ball up or poaching it becomes an unnecessary consideration and instead the defensive player can focus on tying in attackers and using their feet to disrupt the presentation of the ball.

Either way, attacking players are committed and the ball is slowed down.

Secondly, if the drive over succeeds there needs to be a third man there to secure possession and distribute turnover ball quickly; either passing to one of the quicker players or chipping over the opposition and having a committed chase pressurise the isolated receiver. Clean turnover ball, such as this, can be devastating.

What is significant about this approach is that at no point does a player latch onto the man on the ground like a limpet mine and wait for the referee to blow their whistle. This aspect of the game is still important but should be reserved for the isolated attacker; in the last game Australia had a tendency to try this at every breakdown and were frequently penalised for slowing possession down.

Michael Cheika talked of 50-50 calls and stated that his team shouldn’t be allowing these calls to exist. Latching onto the ball on the floor creates a 50-50 situation.

The referee has to judge several aspects of the collision; he has to decide if the defensive player released the tackled man, if the tackled man released the ball and if the poacher has entered correctly and is supporting his own weight. There are lots of decisions that can go either way depending on the referee’s position and the general momentum of the game.

With this wolf-pack mentality, the 50-50 decision is nullified and the referee will tend to favour the defensive team more by perceiving them as the dominant side.

Scrum
For whatever reason, Scott Sio turned up on Saturday and thought he had Dan Cole on toast. Cue a series of scrums where Sio was left face down on the floor waiting for the penalty.

He has been unceremoniously dropped from the matchday squad as a result, slightly harsh for a player learning his trade. Hopefully, he gets a second chance before too long.

However, this attitude is emblematic of a wider problem in the professional era. Coaches and players seemed to have forgotten what an effective offensive weapon the scrum can be, especially if you get one in the middle of the field. Instead, they look for the ‘soft’ penalty.

But I feel the scrummaging mentality is changing and Eddie Jones is the driving force behind this change.

Simply put, Jones seems to recognise the advantages a scrum offers; the defensive line is pushed back, the bigger opposition players are tied in and this creates an opportunity to make significant yards. This is a consistent possibility if you have a fly-half with decent distribution skills and a set of backs with a bit of Sevens-like pace to run around the outside shoulder.

The new rule changes support this approach and have been made in order to create clean ball at the back of the scrum and encourage scrums to be treated as an offensive weapon rather than a penalty machine.

No.9s can’t come around the corner anymore, defensive scrums will no longer be rewarded for a 90-degree wheel, if the ball gets to the No.8s’ feet but the scrum collapses the referee doesn’t have to automatically call for a reset and the No.8 will be encouraged to use it after three to five seconds.

These are good changes and should encourage more ball to be played from scrums and should make for better games.

With these rule changes in mind, hopefully the scrum is more solid this week due to a concerted effort from both teams. However, and I also expect Dylan Hartley to be under orders to hook quickly and cleanly and Billy Vunipola to pick and go as soon as he feels the English grunt come on.

If Vunipola can get past the gainline he will neutralise the Australian threat at the breakdown and give Ford more opportunity to find space with his passing. It will be Sean McMahon’s first job to stop Vunipola from gaining this ground.

I say this with hope, because if Dan Cole now rocks up this weekend thinking he has James Slipper on toast and that it’ll be easier to get penalties than play, then expect collapses and reset scrums all night long.

The players have a responsibility to make these scrums work. I don’t want scrum penalties, I want running ball and people are getting tired of cynical props and scrum-halfs who look for the penalty rather than play the game. Or maybe I’m being naïve and all we’ll see this weekend is a game of collapsed scrums as we watch the game tick away.

The rush versus the pass
This will be key and it’s complicated.

In my last article, I talked about the nature of the rush defence and what Australia need to do to combat it; this involved pushing the ball wide quickly and accurately when they feel James Haskell and company charging up the 10-12 channel. Do this and there will be space on the wing.

England did benefit from their rush defence with turnovers and a try in the 32nd minute of the first half, however they were also punished frequently with Australia making massive yardage, over 800 metres, and tries in the 58th and 71st minutes.

Paul Gustard will have been looking at the video in order to determine what went wrong and the timings of those tries are key. England overused the blitz option and Bernard Foley adapted as the game developed.

He was then supported by an Australian backline that was quick and accurate in its passing, which enabled them to avoid the contact and find the space.

England need to be more selective in their deployment of the rush this weekend. If they keep pressing the blitz button, they will be exposed out wide and Israel Falou will have the game of his life.

They need to use the drift on first and second phase moves and then blitz on the fourth and fifth phase when forwards will be receiving the ball in midfield rather than players with sharper hands. I imagine Maro Itoje will be given the responsibility to make this call when he sees lumpy second rows and props taking the ball in the 10-12 channel.

In turn, Australia shouldn’t approach the second Test expecting the blitz every phase or else they’ll move the ball too wide too early in the phase count and be turned over. Losing ball in these positions, away from the support of the pack, will be a disaster.

The faster backs will have been sucked into the contact area meaning that if the ball gets to finishers like Anthony Watson and Jonathan Joseph, they’ll only be the slower forwards left to chase them.

England want Australia to run up the middle and Australia will have to at some point, but England won’t be able to resist the blitz for long so Foley just needs to be patient.

It’ll be a fascinating game of double bluff; when to blitz and when to drift set against when to run up the middle and when to shift it out wide. If England don’t adapt, they’ll be punished.

Selection
Australia don’t need to panic, they have a winning hand and need to have the confidence to stick, and from the selections it appears Cheika has kept his head.

Australia were on top in nearly every aspect of the game barring the penalty count and the scoreboard. Cheika’s changes suggest he is trying to address this issue as most of the penalties came from the scrum.

With the introduction of James Slipper and Sekope Kepu he has introduced experience and bulk to the scrum situation with the hope Dan Cole will not be able to exert the same amount of influence again.

I’m happy he hasn’t changed the backline as they were utterly faultless last week and, Samu Kerevi especially, deserves a second chance. Sean McMahon was the obvious switch and with it Cheika has introduced like for like, which might leave the Australian forwards a little light in the contact area and limit the amount of ball carriers they have to make the crucial hard yards up the middle; this is possibly a mistake.

England should also stick rather than twist; keep George Ford-Owen Farrell in the 10-12 axis. Mike Brown will stay in the first 15, even though I would desperately like to see Alex Goode given his chance.

The reason I think Brown will get the nod is because of physicality and aggression. Alex Goode has magic feet and wonderful distribution but there is a suspicion at Test level he isn’t combative enough to cope with highball pressure. Or at least not as combative as Brown, but to be fair who is as combative as Brown?

Finally, if we see Elliot Daly on the English bench then we can expect to see him in the final ten minutes. Daly is quicker than Joseph but lacks the other’s dancing feet. This isn’t why he’ll be picked, however.

Daly can kick penalties from near 60 metres. If Jones thinks this will be tight then I wouldn’t be surprised if we see him on the bench as an emergency measure.

Mentality
Both teams have the potential to win but it will be the team who holds their nerve that will manage it.

During the Stuart Lancaster years England were cursed with an inability to make the right decision when it counted. This lack of decisiveness or clear thinking was demonstrated in the Wales World Cup game when they went for the corner instead of going for a penalty that would have given them the draw and consequently seen them qualify.

The genealogy of this muddled decision-making can be traced back to the beginning of Chris Robshaw’s tenure as captain, when he would often select the default conservative option rather than judging the situation on merit. Either way, he had a habit of making the wrong decision and it cost England heavily.

On Saturday, we saw Australia make a decision reminiscent of the Robshaw era. Instead of going to the corner and playing for what they could get they took the three points. Why? Just… why?

Whatever happened they still needed a try and for a try you typically need field position. It was baffling and hinted at a level panic that would be worrying for Australian supporters.

New Zealand are the best because they expect to win, all the time. This attitude is infuriating to opposition supporters but has the remarkable effect of purging a team of panic.

Put in the same situation, New Zealand would have kicked to the corner confident they would get the try and they would have then backed themselves to get in penalty range for the win in the final two minutes. If it didn’t work, no worries. They gave themselves the best chance of getting a result.

And that’s the rub. Australia seemed to be scared of the draw. They are the home team and to snatch a draw at the end would have given them momentum going into the next game. The look of shell-shocked surprise at the end of the game and in the post-match press conference spoke of a team expecting to win.

Maybe that’s why admitting they were going for the draw with a kick to the corner was too much of a step-down for them to consider; egos got in the way and to lose instead by 11 points would have hurt all the more.

Consequently, Australia will want to dominate England and destroy them on the scoreboard; they will have been beasted by Cheika all week and they will want to prove that last week was just a fluke. And they’ll want to do this playing a game they see as their own; running rugby and tries.

England will expect this and will play a game that forces Australia to take chances; they will suffocate Australia through territory and pressure at the contact area. Ben Youngs with his box kicking and Farrell and Ford with their kicking from hand will be key.

They’ll want to push Australia back, put them in the corners and put them under the cosh. They will be hoping the pressure applied at the contact area will cause Australia to panic and start looking to play the Australian way from their own 22 by throwing ambitious passes and running isolating running lines. That’s when the rush will come.

The onus is definitely on Australia come this Saturday. This is only their second game of the year and if they come out and play a mature game, rely on the fact they can score tries, take territory and trust Foley to kick his kicks then they have a very good chance of winning.

But if they feel the pressure and start looking to chase the game then they’ll contrive to lose.

England may have done enough to win this game with their performance in the first Test and the shock it caused.

If Australia now underestimate England and decide to play running rugby regardless of the game situation then they’ll lose. If they’re patient, gain parity up front and wait for the England blitz then they have the skill to exploit the space out wide.

Whoever holds their nerve will get this one and my gut says England.