LONDON — When the clock ticked into the 80th minute, this was going to be a piece about how Marcus Smith’s control and brilliance had managed to guide England to a key morale-boosting victory. He had been England’s spark in attack and their point of difference. All was well again. Phew.
But unfortunately for those of English persuasion, and to the delight of the men from Australia, that’s not England’s way at the moment. In the 83rd minute, Australia shifted the entire narrative and went from 37-35 down to winning the Test 37-42 in the blink of an eye.
Last week, it was the width of a point which handed England a 24-22 defeat to New Zealand. This week, it was an unfortunate knock-on, and an inability to hold out an all-court Wallabies team who strung together seven phases, passed the ball with lightning quick speed and precision through hands before Max Jorgensen punished a scrambled England defence by diving over in the corner.
This one is going to take some getting over for England.
While Steve Borthwick will resist any notion that this is now becoming a psychological or process-related problem, the fact England have lost four on the bounce, and all in the final quarter of the match is an issue.
“It is a game we should have won and we were in a position to win,” Borthwick said. “Multiple times we put ourselves in position to go and win the game and we didn’t. When you turn over that much ball and make a game that unstructured against a team with that much pace, you are giving them opportunities and we gave them far too many.”
Australia came into this ranked ninth in the world, but with one of the canniest coaches in the sport in Joe Schmidt and a cross-code superstar in Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii to boot. England, who were unchanged, had talked all week about the need to put things right. But in the end the story was grasped by Suaalii and the Wallabies plucked out a win which saves next year’s British & Irish Lions tour. Any thoughts of that being a light touch for the tourists are now banished. The Joe Schmidt project is ticking along nicely.
But for England, they will look at this as yet another match that has escaped them when they were within touching distance of victory. The atmosphere felt tense in Twickenham. England have been talking about their project heading in the right direction for a while but needed a victory to vindicate such messaging. They started well, with Chandler Cunningham-South scoring a brilliant try after four minutes and another after 11 minutes. With 19 minutes gone, England were 15-3 up, and had kept Suaalii quiet. But then Tom Curry was forced off injured in the 21st minute, and England lost the back-row battle. Australia found quick-ball and got their soft-handed backs going.
“When you lose a world-class player in the game it has an impact,” Borthwick said. “Alex Dombrandt came on and played really well but clearly the balance of the back row changes.”
From there the Wallabies built a platform. England’s defence was skittled as Suaalii’s delightful no-look basketball pass found Tom Wright to score. They crossed again in the 33rd minute through captain Harry Wilson after Tate McDermott spun through England’s defence and suddenly with Noah Lolesio’s pinpoint kicking keeping the scoreboard ticking over, England were down at half time.
Suaalii showed more glimpses of class in the second half and Australia pounced again in the 50th minute as England’s error count continued to grow. While England had headed into their shell by the time the 60th minute ticked around, this time they grew further.
Ollie Sleightholme scored in the 67th minute to give them a 30-28 lead and England had one foot closer to victory. But the Wallabies struck back in the 75th minute through Andrew Kellaway and led by five points, until Sleightholme scored again in the 77th and Smith’s conversion gave England a two-point lead.
Smith had been the catalyst for everything England did well, constantly prodding kicks in behind Australia, putting pace on the ball when it was needed and was a frequent threat. “We kept trying to suffocate him, but he kept breathing,” Wallabies coach Schmidt said.
Then came the late plot-twist.
With the clock ticking past the 80th minute, the old stadium was rocking again. You felt like England were going to snap this losing streak. But the Wallabies had other ideas and exploited England’s narrow defence to dot down in the corner. Heartbreak, again.
The stats made grim reading for England: alongside 35 missed tackles, they coughed up 19 turnovers and 24 handling errors. That was their undoing.
“This is a team that has got points, there are guys who want to move the ball but if you give the opposition that many chances they are going to take them and they took plenty today,” Borthwick said.
England looked blunt in attack at times, giving the ball to Ollie Lawrence and Tommy Freeman with the hope they’d break the line rather than working to get them across the line, leaving it to Smith to conjure the breakthroughs.
For the Wallabies, this performance scoffed at their world ranking and will be an incredible boost to the group after a tough Rugby Championship campaign which saw them win just one game out of six. But they have the backs and grunt up front to find their feet again. Now, they also have a win as proof of progress.
That’s what’s eluding this England group. You can see they’re nearly there, but they’ve been that way for a while. If you concede 42 points at home, you deserve to lose. They simply have to solve this final quarter conundrum because at the moment it’s stunting their progress. And there’ll come a time when it will progress from being a mere concern to something symptomatic of bigger issues.