Fans and pundits alike have rightly highlighted England Defence as a major concern. This week we’re going to look at some of the issues and potential corrections that we might implement if coaching the side.
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There is no avoiding it, Englands defence has collapsed in the Six Nations.
Very clearly their opening 30 minutes against both Scotland and Ireland have seen pretty spectacular capitulations with England returning a 78% and 72% tackle success rate, missing 15 and 28 tackles against Scotland and Ireland respectively.
If those figures don’t seem so bad (and believe me they are) keep in mind that in both those games the percentage of defensive outcomes for the England sat well above 50% negative.
That translates to 10 positive, 12 negative outcomes against Scotland and 9 positive compared to a whopping 18 negative defensive outcomes against Ireland.
12 of those 18 defensive sets ended in either a try or a penalty to Ireland and 6 from 12 ended in try or penalty to Scotland
Even when they weren’t conceding points England were still allowing themselves to be challenged defensively.
Putting results aside, what will be concerning the coaches is that this is nothing we haven’t seen before. Even in winning they conceded 12 points in the opening 20 minutes against New Zealand and 13 in the opening 30 against Fiji but on those occasions they were able to haul it back in a way they couldn’t against Scotland and Ireland.
As another example though not in the opening half of the game, against Argentina they conceded 16 points in a 20 minute period post Half time and we can see in the table below that in the last 10 games in seven of those when those runs came they shipped a minimum of 10 points.
The truth of it is teams will concede points, and defences will get stressed, there are very few games in which a team won’t feel that pressure but the response is the difference between a good and poor team and England currently are simply not responding.
What is very clear with England is that once they get into a defensive rut they struggle to get out of it.
So what’s the cause, and how does England fix it?
The first thing to understand is where the issues are and how teams have exploited Englands thin and shallow Defence.
One of the best examples of how teams have broken down Englands defence is Ireland’s opening try. By analysing this we get a good sense of where England are getting it wrong.
The Anatomy of a Try (Plural)
1: Defensive Intelligence
Understanding how your opponent defends, and what weaknesses it offers vs Understanding how your opponent attacks and how to pressure that.
What strikes me most about this try is how intelligently Ireland play in attack, and what it did to the English Defence.Point in case the scrum is under pressure, creaking and conceding penalties.The natural temptation here for any side is to get the number 8 to pick up the ball and look to create a ruck, or get Dorris to break as early as possible and get stuck into Ford. What he does instead is knuckle down and control the ball trusting Gibdon-Park to make the right decision.
That give his front 5 just that little extra ballast they need and as result they are in control just long enough to launch their strike play.
That extra time and the fact JGP collects the ball means he is able to hit a much wider pass on first phase ball than if Dorris had taken contact or popped it to him.
2: Attacking the Thinnest part of the Defence
As a result we can see how the England back row stay bound just that bit longer than they’d have hoped, which gives Crowley and the midfield that extra second they need to execute and win the space.
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This launch play is all about striking where England defence is thinnest, which is outside the 13 channel.
Ireland are running a shape designed to bring Arundell in just enough to free up Balaoucoune. It also gets O’Brien into position to support the run.
Two telling points in Englands defence is, how slow they were to move laterally and how flat they are in defence.
Depth is an underrated commodity in defence, we associate it with attack, but it is useful in defence when used appropriately.
For example here, no one is coming to meet the Irish attack, everyone is moving slowly sideways from the first pass. England have not taken the space in front of them, no one is looking to swim past and shut down the Irish trail runners, or even apply pressure on the pass.
There is also no depth in behind, no one is working under the defensive line.
So there is no depth to the defence to apply pressure or deal with any line break/scramble.
It’s almost unopposed for the Irish backs.
The trail runners bring Arundell in but we can see he is holding back not wanting to fully commit, he knows Ireland have the edge but also doesn’t want to abandon Lawrence.
This means when the wide pass comes Balacoucoune has space to exploit both between him and Arundell and in front of him.
Immediately England are stretched chasing the ball, and they are going backwards from which they never recover.
The speed of their lateral movement to try and shut this down is almost non-existent as is their scramble defence.
3: Stretch and Support
03:That allows Baloucoune to work Arundell and take him all the way to the half way.
But what is fantastic here is O’Briens work to get ahead of the England chasers and make himself an inside option, part of that is the shape Ireland ran prior to the line break getting him into position but there is a huge question as to where England under fold and chase back is.
Although, the pack were late breaking from the scrum that slow lateral movement from the backs and an inability to pressure the Irish attack makes it hard for the other defenders to fold under at any pace as they are essentially tracking back with the Irish attack.
O’Brien gets to the English 22. Ireland have gone 22 to 22, with zero confrontation by England.
As a coach I would question why Steward comes forward to close that space down so late. It could be he is holding back for the chip and chase from Ireland but with Freeman supporting I think there was scope to come forward and pressure the ball.
That delay in turn has pulled Freeman all the way across to the opposite side of the pitch, which means he now has to work back to his position whilst trying to read the defence.
Also note how when he is finally brought to ground O’Brien gets the ball under him. Not for long as he is visibly working to place it but positioning slows Lawrence down enough to be cleared out without really threatening the ball.
04: Disorganised reset.
The ball is in Crowleys hands whilst Englands edge defence is still setting.
The Inside defence comes up hard but the problem is everyone swims through and the result is Cowan-Dickie and Genge become disconnected which Ireland exploit sending Ryan into the gap.
Despite Genge’s best efforts Ryan makes the gain line and England are setting around the corner.
Also note here, Curry hits Ringrose, he’s a good 5m ahead of the tackle line, and now has to get back, he never fully recovers and Ireland fully exploit this.
This late into defensive position is a recurring theme for England.
5: Disruption leads to opportunities.
Curry is still working back into position as the ball emerges and when the ball gets to Crowley we can see not only has Curry has only just got back but he’s also separated Ford and Heyes who were set, disrupting an already set defence.
Ringrose sees this and carries into Curry, but just enough to fix him, passing before contact and not taking the tackle.
Freeman shoots up to get in the passing lane, which is fine but this forces Crowley to attack Ford.
The question we need to ask is why does Curry work so hard to get back wide in the defence? The answer is to look for turnover opportunities, he’s the main jackal threat out wide here, but by forcing him to engage with Ringrose, Ireland remove him as a jackal threat at the next ruck.
6: Mistakes Happen.
Itoje goes looking for the scraps, but watch how Ringrose gets in there to clear him, remember one pass ago he was pulling in Curry, now he’s low and winning the shoulders against Itoje.
Curry is clearly finding it hard to get back into an effective defensive position, see how he is ahead of McCarthy?
What does McCarthy do? Exactly, he exploits this with his pick and go straight into Curry, who puts his hands up to signal he’s out of the game and this brings Freeman in to stop the free yards.
Perhaps Ireland make their first and only mistake?
McCarthy carrying when Beirne is free in the wide, regardless the pressure has broken England and Freeman panics and plays the ball without properly releasing.
Beirne gets the ball and Gibson-Park sets off.
7: Reading the room
Probably one of the most frustrating things here is how England are so slow to react to JGP’s tap and go.
Heyes has been working his backside off to stay int he fight, and it would be nice to see Ford Pollock and Chessum in behind the ruck immediately to cause traffic for JGP – even if they can’t tackle him, as long as they are retreating they can just be in the way.
Instead Heyes, who’s worked his arse off, is left to chase JGP and the rest is history.
It is a phenomenal try, Ireland attack with pace, precision, dominate where they need to and don’t overcommit to unnecessary situations (Ringrose vs Curry).
It’s also brilliantly insightful play showing how teams have figured England out.
Attacking deep in their own half from a scrum they know England are going to go after.
They know the English back-row will stay down too long, they also know the defence won’t eb anywhere near as aggressive as they need to be and that likely the winger will be hanging back.
It’s not clear why Steward stays so deep for so long, perhaps trusting Arundell to Chas down the edge attack and force them to kick but regardless it’s one of those decisions that just hands everything Ireland need to finish the job.
If it looks familiar, it’s because it is, we saw Scotland run a similar move as an exit ploy, when Arundell came back on post Yellow card.
On this occasion England shut it down but some key things to note here is that England are hiding Ford in the 13 channel, with Dingwall defending at 10, and Freeman at 12.
Scotland exploit this.
Tuipolotu fixes Dingwall and Freemand and Englands best defenders are out the game for the next few moments.
Although Scotland don’t get the line break they go 22 metres and get a much better exit from this move. Perhaps if Dobie had managed to swing around in time there was potentially a much worse scenario for England.
There is an expectation from England in both this and the Gibson-Park try that teams will want to get into the 10 channel and when that doesn’t happen then, quite strikingly in both clips is how little urgency there is to either to pressure the ball or scramble the defence.
System vs Individual Error?
What we saw for example against Ireland for both Gibson-Park and the McCloskey line break that lead to Balaoucoune’s try was defenders getting into position late.
Van Poortfliet on this occasion gets across late, getting into the space outside Lawrence, leaving McCloskey to take his inside, that means Lawrence is defending two players and as a result is flat footed when the power comes from McCloskey.
It feels like a difficult ask to get your 9 to cover across and filling gaps rather than having the winger step in connecting with Lawrence and creating a solid defensive line and leaving the 9 to push out wider/track underneath.
Sure there are numbers, but the ball is the priority so a defence needs to always be pressuring that and the next man out.
When coaching Sevens we always talked about defending in threes, ball then left and right so the next man can be pressed. the ball shifts the focus moves along one.
Here it feels like England have moved away from this 15 – 15 defence and are asking players to fill in the gaps.
Regardless once the break is made watch the lack of urgency from other players to track back once the line breaks made, waiting for the cover defence, even if they can’t make the cover tackle, defence coaches will be looking to see them get back and get set and off the line to disrupt passing.
We also saw the same against New Zealand for that Jordan break leading to Taylors try. A defender reacting slowly, getting into position allowing Jordan to exploit the gaps and from there England is scrambling.
All these clips illustrate how fragile Englands edge defence is but although England have rung the changes it’s I believe a systemic problem.
- Against Ireland 4 of their 5 tries resulted in breaks in the wide channel.
- Vs Scotland 3 of their 4 tries came from attacking the edge,
- Wales solitary try came out wide with Adams gathering a cross kick unopposed.
These issues go back further, New Zealand score two tries in the opening quarter both by attacking wide. Will Jordan’s line break also through the 13 channel leading to Taylors try.
The fixes are simple, although not easy at this level.
It’s not physicality but more understanding your role in the system. Obviously key is zonal defence, knowing what to do dependent on where you are on the pitch.
Speed to Set
Early set and minimal disruption once set is a foundation of this, it gives the defender time to assess what is required.
Things are so much easier if defenders get an early set, scan and then make early decisions.
Scramble defence is also an non negotiable, and finding some urgency when they are exposed at the edge or through a line break is an absolute must.
Getting into positive space on defence is another, give yourself a chance to recover by coming forward and applying pressure to the ball.
The changes England have made for Italy should help, but the scale of the changes is unprecedented for the coaching group.
On an individual level all make sense, but en masse it’s hard to know for sure.
That said, Daly coming in at 15 is about as old as head as you’ll get in the back three, whilst much is talked of his extra distributor role, he also runs a solid defensive ship, and reads the ball well.
Murley is also a solid defender as is Roebuck, criticised for shooting out at Russell in the Jones try, it is clear Steward is pulled across by Mitchell leaving Roebuck working in isolation in the belief he had a 15 taking last man behind him.
With Spencer and Daly at 9 & 15 they are more likely to understand how to control that back field pendulum.
Back-Row is key, and Pepper for me is absolutely a lynchpin of this England team (we wrote about how much England missed him last week).
Italy are no slouches, but as we saw against France if the attack is good enough they will struggle to stay with you. England should have enough there to manage it, if they can get their defensive rhythm purring early on then it will be much easier and the focus can shift to attack but it’s imperative they set their stall out early.
But France? France are a whole different animal. Their attack is made for this England defence, or should I say made to dismantle it. 2nd Wave Runners on the outside of the 13, blistering pace on the edge, well throughout the team actually.
That games a whole other proposition, with all that in mind if England can get things right against Italy it will go a long way to boosting their confidence vs France.
This isn’t a bad England side, they’ve just hit a rut and teams have figured them out, it happens to everyone, the response is always the important part.
Author: The Dead Ball Area
