So, here we are. Ten days or so out from England Rugby hosting one of the best teams in the world. Crashing out of the Rugby World Cup like Ireland did might be seen by many as falling short of their target but I think few would dispute that they are a very, very good side. England are not. There are two worse sides than them in this Six Nations competition and they’ve beaten them. The next two games (Ireland at home and France in Lyon) will probably end in defeat. I reckon they’re currently the fourth-best side in this northern hemisphere competition. And that’s ok, isn’t it? 

If you read the comments from esteemed pundits, no, it isn’t. Let’s check in with some of them and see how things are. 

Stuart Barnes wants to play Ben Earl at 12. Right. Maybe this wasn’t the best place to start. The doyenne of the rugby back pages is desperate to get England’s best ball carrier into the centres. Billy Vunipola was an excellent ball carrier, wasn’t he? Any calls for him to play at 12 as England tilted at a Rugby World Cup Trophy in 2019? No, I thought not. He feels Zach Mercer should also be included and George Ford is to blame for England’s attacking woes. Barnes thinks England need something out of the ordinary to face up against Ireland. Sounds like someone pushing a panic button. Let’s move on and find some more reasoned opinions from other great rugby minds. 

Lawrence Dallaglio, he of the yellow towel emerging from the shower with an unusual look on his face, saying “Oh yeah, he’s winning…” as a rugby player completely ignores a coach’s halftime talk in favour of a car sale. The irony here is heavy. But anyway, what’s Lol’s antidote to Ireland? Speaking on his podcast, he appears to be quite emotional about the current state of affairs and claims that “ambush… a change of tactics… cute manoeuvres and innovation” are the answer. He continues “we need to work out who (on the Ireland side) we can get stuck into and wind up, and find a way of winning…” and with emphasis, “find a way to win.” Ah so that’s where England are going wrong. They haven’t been looking for ways to win. They’ve been taking to the rugby field without a plan on how to win the game. Then follows a strange and emotional metaphor which reveals more than it should. Dallaglio compares Ireland’s visit to Twickenham next weekend to a burglar coming into your home. Burglars don’t tend to schedule their burglaries with their victims but let’s try and stay with him. “If someone comes into your own home, you don’t let them rob you of your possessions, do you?” 

“No,” says Steve Cording with the conviction of a man who doesn’t really know what this has to do with a game of rugby, where the winning of it doesn’t belong to anyone and is genuinely up for grabs to the team that plays the best. 

“So if Ireland want to come to Twickenham, you know…(it’s not so much that they want to, Lawrence but they have to, the Six Nations calendar has decreed it, a lot of organisation goes into these things, it’s not a surprise attack Ireland are mounting here? You know that, right?) it’s like having someone burgle your own home, (is it? I don’t think it is. Winning a game of rugby at Twickenham is not England’s by right. They have to play well to earn that win. Just like everyone else. This is a really bad analogy, Lawrence) you send them away, you know, simple as that.” (Send them away? Ah ok, so when Ireland turn up next Saturday, the best plan is for England to line up at the coach door and explain that the Ireland aren’t coming in to Twickenham, and that they need to drive off and not come back? That doesn’t seem simple and would probably incur a lot of issues from the tournament organisers. Perhaps best to let them in, play the game, try and be better than them at certain elements of rugby and hope you win. And if you’re not better than them at rugby, learn from the way you were beaten and try and be better in future games. Sometimes defeats can serve you so much more than wins. And being beaten doesn’t mean a crime has been committed. It’s part of sport. And probably best, as an Englishman, not to reference taking things that don’t belong to you while mentioning Ireland. History would suggest England don’t have a good track record there.)

Mark Cueto in QTing the video post feels that, with his bottom lip about to go, the way to beat Ireland is to put Dallaglio back in the side. Right, passion is great Mark but I think I’ll take fitness, strength, current rugby playing form and, I dunno, age into consideration first. 

Surely there is someone with a decent approach to this game. Sir Clive Woodward? Nope. He’s still bleating on about players celebrating turnovers and scrum penalties… Why is that a problem? England don’t have a huge amount else to try and galvanise themselves with out there on the pitch, these small victories could perhaps be used to claim an edge in a tight game, no?

Ugo Monye thinks it’s the weight of the England shirt. Not literally, metaphorically. I knew you knew that but with previous paragraphs in this article showing an alarming pattern, I thought it was best to be sure. He claims, “Any of the top four Premiership sides would look more cohesive against Scotland than England did,” says Monye. That could be true if this was an inexperienced England team. But Care, Ford, Slade, Daly, and even Furbank, all have decent experience in the “shirt”. The forwards are the same: hundreds of caps show this is a team with plenty of experience of not just playing for England but of playing for England together.

Elsewhere, Oliver Brown in the Telegraph thinks it’s all the fault of these pesky foreigners, coming over and stealing our jobs. He feels that certain names in the Scotland and Ireland set ups are too ‘Islander’ or ‘South African’.  Names like Duhan Van Der Merwe, Sione Tuipolotu, Bundee Aki, Josh Van Der Flier, Mako Vunipola, Emmanuel Feyi-Waboso and Jack van Poortvliet have names that, just as names, should have some red flags attached to them. Hang on, that list has got some names on it that have played for England when I want this article to focus on teams who beat England. Oh England, this sceptred isle, this earth of majesty, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers. Follow your spirit, and upon this charge, Cry God for Harry, England, and Saint George!

Sorry, we seem to have lost Oliver Brown there. He has got himself incredibly frothed up and disappeared. I think his point was about funny names, which would seem the sort of complaint someone called Oliver Brown might have.

Or, and here’s a thing, maybe England aren’t that wrong. International rugby is tough, difficult, games turn on small moments and there are some excellent teams around. Maybe England went to Murrayfield and got beaten by a side that are, at the moment, just a little bit better than them. Maybe England haven’t been that good for a while and it’s going to take Steve Borthwick (a relatively inexperienced coach) to make things click and turn things around. And in the meanwhile, England could well lose against Ireland and France. And later this year, they could lose to New Zealand and South Africa, and will find Australia and Japan a little tricky too. Maybe we should stop looking for things to blame and maybe just accept where they are. I know the World Cup didn’t help because it gave England fans a false equivalence of being one of the top four teams in the world but one half of the draw was stacked and that allowed England to get further than perhaps they merited. But let’s accept that too. 

England fans need to accept that wins aren’t a given. We don’t need to push any panic buttons and play players out of position; we don’t need to have a tantrum because people have foreign-sounding names, they have passed all of the World Rugby requisite tests to play for that country; we don’t need to blame the weight of expectation, or suggest that we had it right 20 years ago because we had passion and that’s what is missing at the moment.

No. 

What we need to do is accept that England aren’t quite the side they want to be. They need to improve. But they need to put their big boy pants on and face up to Ireland and France and see how they fare. And yes, they might lose, but that’s not always a bad thing, there will be developments if you approach it in the right way. This England team does have the potential to be better than it is. But we won’t get there by ignoring truths and not being honest with ourselves. 

I would give the whole of this year to look at the new and exciting talent coming through. Give them experience, get them smiling and trying to play without fear. Use the older heads in the squad to bring them through. Let’s not focus on the short term but look at the long term. How do we make certain young players on the fringe of this squad 50 cappers? That’s what we should be thinking about because that is where we build a better team. 

At the moment, England look like the fourth-best side in this year’s Six Nations. Say it out loud. Accept it. Make peace with it. Only then will we be able to move on and perhaps do something about it.