Four England talking points after width of post loss to All Blacks

Saturday at Allianz Stadium was Hollywood-esque in terms of the edge-of-seat entertainment delivered but the nagging feeling walking down the Whitton Road after the dust had settled and both camps had said their piece was that the beaten England sounded way too happy after losing a game they could have, should have won.

It’s a Steve Borthwick trait, spin the positive, talk about learning and be the epitome of the glass-half-full guy, but the time is here when these repeated sound bites start to lose value.

Yes, England have undoubtedly become fun to watch this year. Getting filleted in Scotland last February was the best thing that has happened to them on Borthwick’s watch as it forced the immediate abandonment of their blunt, dull, tedious approach to their rugby. Out with the sterile, in with the creativity.

It’s been transformative but they have got to stop feeling satisfied that they are not far away from securing big Test wins regularly. We had this narrative throughout the Stuart Lancaster era, an endearing competitiveness but his English crew were only ever good enough for an annual second-place Six Nations finish.

Always close but ultimately never enough cigar, which is precisely where Borthwick’s England currently are. Ireland were epically pipped at the death in March but repeating that nerves-of-steel type win has since been frustratingly elusive, France and now New Zealand three times on the bounce skipping away into the night with the spoils.

While these one, seven and two-point margins of defeat to the Kiwis in Dunedin, Auckland and London suggest performances that merit all-round kudos, England’s ‘encouraging’ displays could be left in the ha’penny place if Ireland and France come along and scuttle the All Blacks in the next two weekends.

As it stands, Borthwick’s record in charge is just above breakeven, 13 wins in 25 matches, but their current run of five losses in their seven most recent outings needs altering. No more Mr Nice Guys. Here are the RugbyPass talking points from their 22-24 defeat to New Zealand:

The wrong sub pick

We are very much George Ford fans. The Sale orchestrator was critical to last March’s attack overhaul, performing at the top of his game in those clashes with the Irish and the French. However, he was the wrong man to have on the England bench against the All Blacks.

Borthwick has improved as a Test team selector and is a finer-details guy regarding squad morale. For example, he made a point at the end of Saturday’s warm-up to shake hands with Luke Cowan-Dickie, Trevor Davison, Jack van Poortvliet, Fin Smith and Elliot Daly, thanking them for their selfless participation as the 24th to 28th men to try and ensure England were ready.

However, when it came to the bench, Borthwick was misguided in choosing Ford ahead of Fin Smith as the back-up to Marcus Smith. Ford missed the summer tour through injury while his current club season had been restricted to no more than 86 minutes due to a September 28 quad tear at Saracens.

Five weeks without action meant he came in cold when sent on with 17 minutes to go at Twickenham and that lack of match sharpness cruelly told, Ford falling off his tackle on the try-scoring Mark Tele’a and then botching his two potential win-rescuing kicks, hitting an upright off the tee with his penalty and then drifting a drop goal narrowly wide.

Of course, he will be much better when he next plays for England, but that is irrelevant. He needed to be accurate this weekend and he wasn’t. While Fin Smith is vastly inexperienced compared to Ford at Test level, his five full 80-minute performances for Northampton meant he was the form choice Borthwick needed to go with to complete the job versus the Kiwis.

It wasn’t the head coach’s only decisional mishap. Hooking Ben Spencer and Marcus Smith at a time when their starting half-back partnership was flourishing and dominating was premature.

The pair had been excellent in turning around a 6-14 deficit into a 22-14 lead and it appeared they had plenty more to give rather than Borthwick sending on Harry Randall and Ford and England ‘losing’ 0-10 while they were on.

Borthwick’s six-forwards-on-the-bench tactic also stalled, but in the opposite way. What was the point in having an extended ‘bomb squad’ if you don’t fully pull the pin? Nick Isiekwe was wasted as the extra forward option, only getting about two and a half minutes after the lead had been lost. He should have arrived sooner.

Felix and the offloads

A penny for the thoughts of the exiled Felix Jones, the defence coach being made to remotely serve his notice period after declaring in late August that assisting England is something he no longer fancies.

Nine weeks on from that revelation, England took the field with Borthwick’s wedding usher, Joe El-Abd, now coaching defence and the manner of the three tries conceded swiftly ended his honeymoon.

Coming from Oyonnax in the French Pro D2, it was always going to be a step up to Test level for him and questions must be asked if what he preached and tweaked this past fortnight at training hurt the England rearguard.

As fabulous as it was to see inside centre Ollie Lawrence topping the tackle count with a whopping 22 and revelling in the responsibility, New Zealand clinically got around England on the edge – George Furbank, Ellis Genge and Ford all found wanting when the tries were conceded.

Would that have happened with Jones still hands-on in the set-up? We can’t say for certain, but what was definite is that England must do better in shutting down the opposition offload from the tackle.

It was a statistic that stood out, New Zealand making 14 offloads to England’s meagre four in contrast to last time out in Auckland when there were just two Kiwi offloads to three English after the Jones’ defence was fine-tuned from Dunedin a week earlier when there was a Twickenham-type difference between the teams' respective offloading levels.

There was none prettier or as devastating on Saturday as Wallace Sititi getting his one-handed pass away to the scoring Tele’a when Furbank shot out of the line and went high to ‘help’ the lower-down Tommy Freeman make a double tackle.

“If you see it, do it, you back yourself,” enthused Kiwi boss Scott Robertson about this offloading dominance. “That’s part of the skill set, part of our DNA. We want to play footy. If it’s on we will take the opportunity in front of us.” Unfortunately for England, they did.

Double-barrelled star era

Switching from the collective to the individual, the Autumn Nations Series opener was proof that double barrel surnames are set to be up in English lights for quite some time.

In other circumstances, the 21-year-old duo Immanuel Feyi-Waboso and Chandler Cunningham-South could be representing Wales and New Zealand respectively. Instead, they have the potential to be England rockstars for the next decade and more if the adoration of the Twickenham crowd was an indicator.

England haven’t played most at home lately – Saturday was just their third London match in 16 outings – but the power in the tackle and general level of skill and intelligence shown by Feyi-Waboso and Cunningham-South was something for the white-shirted fans to giddily celebrate.

The crowd reaction to Feyi-Waboso’s try finish was deafening while the standing ovation afforded to Cunningham-South when he was subbed with England leading was deserved given how his dominant tackles helped to swing the momentum in a bristling way when his team were losing.

Both were understandably name-checked in the aftermath. “I couldn’t be more impressed with Manny, not only in open space but he made a lot of tough carries as well,” enthused skipper Jamie George. “The way he was in the air, some of his athleticism was incredible.”

Borthwick added: “Chandler’s development over this last period of time has been excellent. He is a real determined player who is growing to be a real Test match player… he is doing a tremendous job.”

Here’s to seeing more of this type of impact then in the coming weekends, with the result hopefully being these two young double-barrelled bucks becoming household names by the end of November. The English games needs new stars and these two rookies look like they have what it takes.

The half-time bottleneck

Here’s a left-field suggestion – what about extending the duration of the half-time interval? As fabulous as it was to have an attendance of 81,910 packed into an atmospheric Allianz Stadium, the concourse was an almighty bottleneck at the break, whether you were looking to spend a penny in the loo or spend pounds at the drinks and food stalls. People moved slowly, if at all.

The result? Numerous empty seats when referee Angus Gardner blew his whistle to start the second half. If rugby is truly an entertainment business, surely every effort should be made to help fans get back in their seats in time and not miss any of the treasured action.

Who knows? Not only could an extended half-time reflect well on the player welfare message, giving them an extra few minutes to rest and recover and not come back 'cold' as Robertson explained about Tupou Vaa'i and his 42nd-minute leg issue, it could well suit the TV companies shelling out the megabucks to broadcast the live match coverage.

Looking down from the gantry, this writer spotted TNT Sports pundits Courtney Lawes and Sam Warburton wedged into touchline seats down in the corner in line with the try-line England were defending in the opening half.

That was hardly the best vantage point for them to get the best feel of the exchanges but such is the level of congestion at a stadium like Twickenham, it was better having them there ready to contribute to the live TV half-time discussion rather than battle their way through the crowd if they were seated higher up in the stand.

Twickenham has much to crow about. Its busy set-up certainly delivers when it comes to the pre- and post-game activities around the stadium to help attract fans in early through the turnstiles and get them to hang around afterwards. Half-time, though, is quite the ordeal.