I’m never sure if anyone actually reads these but I do them for my own amusement as much as anything, so here goes, a bit of back-play analysis - specifically the three tries England scored in the first half, all through JJ’s line breaks all off lineout ball thrown to the back of the line. In fact although my focus is the backs I cannot overstate the importance of quality lineout ball in creating the conditions for the backs to operate in; I’ll leave someone who knows more than me to speculate on the hows, whys and wherefores but the English pack created excellent quality quick ball for their backs, and crucially with the first line of Scottish defence in many cases already taken out the game.
England’s back play was brilliant, accurate and fast, and JJ’s individual skill the icing on the cake. But Scotland’s defence was also poor throughout all three, indecisive and disjointed. Jonny Wilkinson at half time on the ITV coverage nailed it when he said of the Scottish backs and their decisions in defence “they are now individually having to guess rather than playing a system†(FYI I owe a fair bit of what follows to JW’s analysis, definitely worth watching the half time show if you haven’t already - it also shows all three tries from the camera behind the posts, giving the best viewpoint of the defensive and attacking positioning and lines)
TRY 1
Having set a maul and sucked in forwards, England use Hughes passing from the maul to Youngs at first receiver to create an extra man.
Although the defence is well positioned, they are indecisive and there is no linespeed and they do not seem confident to move up together, instead hanging back and waiting to react to the attack. What is really disappointing from a Scottish point of view is that there wasn’t really any deception to this move, it was really just a case of giving the ball to JJ and seeing what he could do. His speed and skill combined with indecision and poor decision from the Scottish centres turned a first phase carry into a clean break, and then into a try.
Dunbar is far too slow out - once GF gives the ball he is still jogging, still trying to read the play. At the point JJ became the carrier he needed to go straight for him at full speed because he had ground to make up; instead he dithers and leaves a tiny opening and that is all JJ needs with his pace and feet.
Jones is also at fault, committing unnecessarily to Brown early when he should have still been watching JJ. There’s a lot of talk regarding defence about “trusting the systemâ€, the trouble is when the system doesn’ t work (i.e., Dunbar here) trusting it only makes the error worse. Basically, Jones did the right thing IF Dunbar could be trusted to make the tackle on JJ - but he couldn’t.
TRY 2
Watching this try back I was absolutely staggered to see that Scotland simply did not have a "tail gunner" at the lineout, i.e. a forward to come fast off the back of the lineout and make the first tackle on the first receiver. Whether accident or design I’m not sure but an incomprehensible error. In fact if you look no one is standing in the SH spot for Scotland - instead they appear to be lining up an extra man (Hamish Watson) in the backs.
Essentially, they are focusing their resources too wide and leaving an enormous hole next to the set piece, which England exploit easily with quite a neat trick: Youngs stands at the front of the line with Farrell at the SH spot, a soon as the ball is thrown to the back (taking out the Scottish forwards at the back of the lineout), both peel off and Youngs passes to Farrell running into the space where the Scotland SH isn’t. Essentially, the defensive alignment all down the line is now ****ed - everyone has to pull in one by one, and that will always cause a gap somewhere down the line. Ford and JJ isolate a defender, again a superb finish by JJ.
TRY 3
By now Scotland’s defence knows it is in crisis and is desperately trying to find a way to stop it. Finn Russell (who I have to say did not play like a man who responds positively to adversity … ) rushed up as fast as he could to cut out the space on Ford, which pulled the back line out of shape, because the tail gunner actually did have that man covered, and again everyone else in the defensive line is now pulled inwards, and the system once again is broken. Watson (again defending the 12 channel) bites in on Hughes’s dummy run (arguable whether he needed to in the circumstances - Hughes is heading back into the cover defence) leaving Dunbar once again isolated against Farrell and JJ. Again perfect pass timing and JJ’s speed and skill breaks the line, then a quality support line and another well timed pass put in Watson.
(NB worth noting that with 2 dummy runs and a pass from the maul the much-maligned Hughes had a key role in each of these first half tries)
Apologies for the long post - feel free to elaborate, disagree or ignore completely. Your call
