I never said it was the only problem - but as I said, a malfunctioning scrum poisons everything. Your pack tires quicker than theirs, players get demoralised, possession becomes scant leading to more tiring bouts of defending and pressurized decision making in attack. This is doubly true for a team who was only ever really going to score in multiples of 3 anyway (a problem in itself). So yes, I maintain that the game was lost mainly there, as it disaligned too many systems. You may disagree - I am open to argument on the score - but what I do hold as open and shut is that the effects of scrum dominance is so pronounced that you categorically cannot state the superiority of a back-row unit based on a game where one team had a better scrum. If you want to talk about England's back row based on a series of games, well and good, if you want to use a single skewed example then there's no point.
Don't buy your point about the rest of the Six Nation having unbalanced back-rows either. Zanni-Barbieri-Parissee is very nicely balanced imo. France's back row is as balanced as its ever been really, they seem to do ok. Scotland's back row wasn't balanced this time round but they regularly throw up great balanced units, but to no avail. Only really leaves us and Ireland - and while, granted, the game has changed, Ferris/O'Brien'Heaslip isn't really much different to the Ferris/Wallace/Heaslip unit they won their grand slam with. They just can't get the rest of the team, or get those players fit and in form, leaving them with inferior players.
And really, I think inferior players is what it comes down to. I don't want to badmouth balance, gods no, but really the best way to get a superb back row is stick them behind a great tight five, drop in three World Class players and let them get on with it. Wales have four - minimum - very good back-rowers. Robshaw and Wood are good, but they're not and never will be World Class. Wales also currently have a superior scrummaging tight five. If I am not talking out my buttocks, then I predict that in about two and a half years time the Welsh back-row will undergo dips in form, people will go on about how they've overrated etc.etc. Maybe three years. The time span being my guess at when Adam Jones retires from international rugby. My guess is rendered invalid if you suddenly produce another prop like him from nowhere just like that, but that's slightly below the Euromillions jackpot odds, what with how long it takes to make international props. Heck, it happened last Autumn.
And, if by continue to struggle against Aus and NZ, you mean have better recent records than Wales, I'll take that. NZ's two worst results this season against NH sides came against England and Ireland - the two worst balanced back-rows in the Northern Hemisphere. How if balance is all? Yes, I know norovirus/playing someone at the end of their season is helpful - but its not everything, and the noro first struck NZ before the Wales game, and didn't help Wales there.
Balance is good. But its not everything and it affected by more than the three guys in the unit anyway. I do really hope Kvesic comes through, but that's mainly because I think he can be World Class, where most of our current back-rows bluntly lack the potential.
