The complex and deep-seated factors underpinning England's breakdown malaise

Is this rugby’s longest-running saga?

*Disclaimer* This article will be overly focused on the role of the openside flanker. Contrary to social media’s expectations, a team’s seven is not solely responsible for a side’s success or failure at the breakdown, but they do play a significant role in most teams. Abhorrent terms like “out-and-out fetcher” will, I admit, be used, but if you can bear with us through that, hopefully there will be some value in this piece.

The fallout from England’s loss to Scotland at Murrayfield is nothing new. There are exceptions, but for the most part, England’s losses over the last 15 years have tended to stem from issues at the contact area more so than any other deficiency.

Whether that has been the lack of a player or two who can make a significant difference in that area with their ability over the ball or a general lack of discipline – or too much discipline and an inability to play referees – has swayed to and fro, yet it has been a consistent theme with England under five different head coaches.

Since the triumvirate of Richard Hill, Neil Back and Lawrence Dallaglio hung up their international boots, the English back-row has been in flux and, despite some excellent players over the years, the balance of the group has never truly been nailed for any length of time.

The first two seasons of Eddie Jones’ reign have seen a stabilising of the unit, with Chris Robshaw and James Haskell favoured either side of the talismanic Billy Vunipola, but the cracks have begun to show in that group, too.

With Vunipola struggling with injuries and missing much of the last 18 months, England’s inability to break the gain-line as regularly and flood forward on to the ball, rather than contest an arm wrestle at a more stationary ruck, has risen to the surface. Robshaw has been pushed back into a position that Jones himself said he wasn’t suited to and Haskell, despite impressing previously, is seeing the difficulty of breaking back into a team, as a 32-year-old, after losing his place due to injury.

In all honesty, England weren’t a great side at the breakdown during Jones’ first two seasons, but they just had enough weapons elsewhere that their coughing up of penalties in that area was not sufficient to see them lose games.

Finding that elusive David Pocock or Sam Cane to build around is no easy task and one that England have struggled with since long before Jones arrived on the scene.

There was a brief moment of hope when Tom Rees – all hail Tom Rees – made the breakthrough for England, but it was to be short-lived. He looked for all money like an 80 or 90-cap player and had future England captain written all over him, until injuries unfortunately struck.

Injury robs us and the game of some truly exceptional players year after year, but perhaps none as potentially pivotal to England’s success as Rees would have been.

He was a player that would have fitted Jones’ ‘George Smith’ mould of openside perfectly, not only capable of threatening opposition ball with excellent strength, balance, speed and decision-making, but also physical enough to play a key role in his own side’s ball security.

It’s that ideal of what Jones wants his openside to be, that goes a long way to explaining the exclusion of some very adept Premiership operators, as well as being a significant source of frustration for England rugby fans.

Social media, forums and chats down the pub typically revolve around England’s breakdown inefficiencies and their lack of a traditional seven. From debates over Lewis Moody’s role on the pitch a decade ago to Steffon Armitage’s potential value in 2015, and of course the obligatory ‘6.5’ chat, it’s been a very long-running debate.

In its current form, very rarely do the names of Ben Curry, Matt Kvesic and Brendon O’Connor not come up when this topic is raised, as well as current England squad members Sam Underhill and Sam Simmonds. All five are very adept players, but do they fit more of a Michael Hooper mould than a George Smith one? Excluding Underhill, that could certainly be argued.

Ben’s brother Tom has been involved with England and a broken wrist is all that is currently keeping him out of the side and one constant question you hear is “why not pick Ben, if Tom is unavailable?”

They are very similar players in many ways, but if you’re looking for something to differentiate them, it’s that Tom is a little bit more physical already and Ben is slightly quicker ruck-to-ruck. Given Jones’ comments on what he looks for in an openside, you can understand why Tom might have the edge on his brother at this point.

It does also prompt the question of whether English rugby is producing enough players of this type and of the requisite calibre to see them make an impact at Test level?

Obviously, Tom Curry has started his international career impressively and Sam Underhill, who spent two seasons in Wales, has flashed, too, but where is the competition at that spot that pretty much permeates every other position in English rugby currently?

Breakdown issues are not endemic to the national team, they also affect many of the sides in the Premiership strongly, particularly in European competition and even more particularly against Guinness PRO14 opposition.

A lot has been made about the poor performances of the English sides in this year’s Champions Cup and not being as savvy at the breakdown has certainly contributed strongly to their weaker showing this season. Bath, Leicester Tigers and Exeter Chiefs all had noteworthy games in the group stages where they were stifled on the gain-line and then ripped into at the contact area by PRO14 sides.

The changes in the laws around the breakdown have had a significant effect and from an external point of view, the PRO14 sides seem to have adapted to them much quicker and this is something which has been backed up by a conversation I had with a prominent player recruitment and retention decision-maker at a Premiership rugby club.

He told me that at several Premiership clubs, there had been an “overreaction in balancing back-rows”, with some teams making too many changes in order to control the breakdown and becoming unbalanced, whilst others had not done enough to adjust and were getting “blown away at the breakdown”, and described this season as one of “learning and transition” as the new laws bed in.

English rugby does seem to be adapting off the field, however.

That same figure stated that whilst big carriers, predominately No 8s, were making significantly more money across the board a season or two ago than their back-row colleagues, the market is currently “being reactive to the new law changes” and squad budgets in the back-row are being more evenly distributed to reflect that.

This has been less of an issue in the PRO14.

One PRO14 head coach told me that because of the refereeing in the Premiership, where referees are all trained by the same union and report in, each week, to the same governing body, their interpretation of the game is more consistent. Whilst this is a positive for the Premiership as a competition, it does mean that coaches in the competition will tailor their coaching to that singular refereeing style, unlike in the PRO14, where players must adapt to different referees from different unions, with differing interpretations each week.

He highlighted that, in the PRO14, where relegation is not a threat and referees generally “let a little more go” from a defensive side at the breakdown, decision-making at the jackal is constantly practised and developed.

As such, the value, historically, has been higher for a fetching-type flanker in the PRO14 than it has in the Premiership, where dominant ball-carriers are seen as more key.

With that seeming to be changing at the recruitment and retention level, Premiership rugby is adapting to the changing dynamics of the game, but is that adaptation occurring on the training ground?

Even the most casual glance at the England U20 and U18 sides of recent years shows you that there is no shortage of contact area-influencing talent being produced in England, even if they haven’t been viewed as quite as important as the more dynamic ball-carriers.

The Curry twins are obviously prominent and have made seamless steps up to senior rugby, but they would seem to be the exception, rather than the rule.

Will Evans probably falls into the ‘unlucky’ category, having suffered frustrating injuries at just the wrong time. He was set to defend his World Rugby U20 Championship title in the summer of last year, only to have glandular fever deny him the opportunity, whilst this season, having put some more weight on his frame, has had to bide his time to stake his claim for Leicester, having fractured his eye socket. He is an openside who fits the traditional mould perfectly and a player who, at 18 years of age, had Jones requesting video footage of his training sessions.

Ben Earl is going well for Saracens and has a bright future, but you wouldn’t describe him as a traditional seven or as fluent at the breakdown as either Ben Curry or Evans.

The success stories are thin on the ground after those four, though.

The likes of Matt Everard, Josh Bainbridge, Chris Walker, Will Owen, Gus Jones, Matt Hankin, Will Allman and David Sisi have all flashed at age-grade level but not quite been able to make that leap to being a difference-maker at the senior level. Lewis Ludlam is another bright talent who influences the game strongly at the breakdown, but who is still having to bide his time for significant playing time at Northampton.

Compare this to Welsh rugby and the contrast is stark.

Ellis Jenkins, James Davies, Ollie Griffiths, Nic Cudd, Will Boyde, Justin Tipuric, Josh Navidi, Will Jones.

Welsh rugby, with just four top tier professional sides, is pumping out players in the back-row who have fetching prowess far more efficiently than English rugby is with 12 top tier clubs.

You don’t want to be too critical of English rugby, which is doing a good job of developing and pushing on talent at most positions, but flanker – particularly those with major responsibility at the breakdown – is a position which is bucking the trend. There seems to be a disconnect between producing these talented prospects and then turning them into top calibre Premiership players who can knock on international rugby’s door.

When you factor in the English sides’ slowness to adapt in the Champions Cup this season, as well as a couple of key England games over the last two years – their win over Italy at Twickenham and their loss to Scotland at Murrayfield – it begs the question, are players overcoached?

Are these prospective jackals coached to carry and tackle and put pressure on in the defensive line, rather than being allowed to really focus on where they excel?

Playing style could well be having an effect.

Saracens have been the benchmark in English and European rugby over the last few years and they are a team that doesn’t flood the breakdown. They certainly aren’t ineffective in that area, picking and choosing their moments well, but they often don’t select a traditional fetcher and much prefer to keep men on their feet and bring pressure in a different way, with the speed of their defensive line.

In essence, Saracens try make their opposition make a mistake as their first priority, rather than looking to force a turnover on the ground. There are certainly elements of that to Exeter, too, especially when they select a back-row of Dave Ewers, Don Armand and then one of Sam Simmonds or Thomas Waldrom.

For the two best sides in the Premiership, shutting down the space and time of the opposition has become more important than competing on the ground. Given their success, they’re a tough blueprint not to try and follow on the pitch for the other 10 Premiership clubs.

By contrast, the prominent sides in the PRO14 lean heavily on multiple players capable of stealing ball and creating counter-attack opportunities, such as Dan Leavy and Josh van der Flier at Leinster and James Davies and John Barclay at the Scarlets.

One Premiership academy coach told me that there is a “point of emphasis” on coaching and encouraging risks to be taken at the breakdown in the junior academies, with players urged to attack with their defence and create turnover situations that opposing teams will struggle to reorganise and defend from.

They also said that the “focus shifts to the set-piece once the players leave school” and that senior coaches are often keen to push their development in that area forward, such are the perils of losing close games and residing in the bottom half of the table, with relegation an ever-present risk.

In multiple conversations, coaches brought up Tom Coventry’s London Irish side that were relegated two years ago, citing that as one of the fears of not focusing on the set-piece enough, especially for teams competing in the bottom half of the league. Couple that with the way that both Saracens and Exeter play at the top of the league and you begin to run out of clubs which would put forward proactive jackaling strategies on the pitch.

Whilst Jones’ preferences in the back-row and his apparent refusal to pick certain players is a lightning rod for media attention and fans’ ire, the well clearly isn’t overflowing in the Premiership.

Sure, it’s not dry, either, but it’s a fact, English rugby struggles to develop players with skill at the breakdown.

When England get to welcome Vunipola back, he will solve a lot of the issues in this area and not just because of his carrying, but also because he has quietly become one of the most successful breakdown operators in the game, clearing out with accuracy and ferocity, as well as latching on to balls with as much tenacity as even the game’s current leading limpet, Australia’s David Pocock.

It should be a worry, though, just how reliant England have become on him, especially with his recent injury history. He does so much positively for England that the balance with his two flankers is a lot easier to achieve, because they are going to be able to feed off of everything that he does.

When he is not there, England need to look more closely at their back-row because carrying a player with a second row’s skill set, a workhorse flanker and any number of No 8s who have ability but can’t make the hard yards after contact that Vunipola does, is probably not going to cut it against the very best sides. They will, with their defensive line speed and first-up tackling, force you into a competition at the breakdown whether you like it or not.

It will be interesting to see Jones’ selection for France, with injury ruling Underhill out and potentially opening a door for Simmonds, should Jones want to make a change. Tom Curry’s opportunities on the summer tour to South Africa will also be interesting, as these breakdown deficiencies that England have are the narrow margins of error which could cost them at next year’s Rugby World Cup.

The new laws and the difficulty English players often have with PRO14 and southern hemisphere referees should prompt long-term change in Premiership attitudes and coaching at the breakdown, but it is unlikely to have a significant effect between now and the RWC, so Jones identifying his preferred openside and a contingency plan for no Vunipola, is of paramount importance over the next 12 months.

It all begins in Paris this Saturday.