By Scott Ingleton
On a warm night in the capital of Japan, the men of the English team won an exceptionally important match with an alarming amount of ease. This should be a concern to fans of England, who have yet to face a full strength tier one team (the last being Scotland in the Six Nations, and we all remember how that ended). Nonetheless, the team bearing the Red Rose are the first in this tournament to win a place in the quarter finals, a clear improvement on four years ago.
In the 18th minute, Tomas Lavanini smashed into Owen Farrell, crashing his shoulder into direct contact with Farrell’s head. According to the rules put forward by the governing body World Rugby, this is a clear red card offence as was rightly given out by referee Nigel Owens (after consultation with his TMO). This can only lead to two clear conclusions; first, that card dramatically altered the direction of the match. While England had taken the lead thanks to a well worked try by May off the back of a strong lineout maul, they did not look fully in control. Granted, it is rare that a team comes out clearly on top in the first half of a match between tier 1 nations and maintains that composure throughout the match (the most recent example perhaps being New Zealand against South Africa, which was by no means an easy contest). The match was therefore still very much in the balance when the red card against Lavanini shifted momentum over to England.
To play a game of rugby with fourteen men is tough. To play it with fourteen men for over 60 minutes is really tough. To play it with fourteen men and only seven forwards for over 60 minutes is asking far too much. Every scrum from then on, the Argentine pack was massively outweighed by the English, which posed them a dilemma. They could either fold at each set piece, conserving energy but gifting the English ground and possibly a penalty, or resist the scrum and work much harder individually. Of course, they split between the two choices, at one point finding a jubilant Agustin Creevy winning a penalty from the scrum in the 63 rd minute (only for Boffelli to kick it too far and waste the opportunity). The sheer elation on the face of the hooker for this small, insignificant victory at scrum time shows how much their morale had dropped in the 40 minutes since the departure of Lavanini, and for Boffelli to throw a real attacking opportunity away really summed Argentina’s night up. Individual errors compiled to bring down a side that had made the semi finals in the previous two World Cups, meaning Argentina must now hope France fails to dispatch Pool C minnows Tonga on Sunday, before being truly annihilated by England the following weekend.
We know what Argentina can do. They held Australia, New Zealand, France and South Africa to very tight games (though unable to win any of them), an average points gap of just under a try’s worth. They are fast, skilful, and can score off well practised set moves. Just look at their try; a few sweet passes after a well set lineout and Moroni is away to score under the posts. This leads onto the second point though; after that score, with 10 minutes left to go, England scored two more tries, one could argue out of anger, or perhaps shame at conceding points to a team who never looked to threaten their tryline. Their game sharpened up almost instantly, and through replacement Jack Nowell England went back to 22 points ahead of their opposition.
Many have commented on England’s performance, stating it as boring, or unconvincing, even poor. While these are certainly arguments that can be made, it is doubles that England were in control from the sixth minute through to the 80th (other than the Moroni try).
England made a third fewer tackles than Argentina (88 to 124) they had almost 60% possession and ran twice as many meters (433 to 226). Plus, they scored six tries to Argentina’s one. None of this is surprising given the early exit due to the red card offence but it doesn’t disprove the fact that England were dominant for almost the entirety of the match. While some top teams, like the All Blacks, may be ruthless in scenarios such as this, putting away as many points as possible (look at the Tonga or Canada matches), England decided different. They played an aesthetically dull game, expecting Argentina not to have the power to put them at risk, scoring enough to gain the bonus point to all but secure top place in their pool and then retaining as much energy as possible. Knocking up multiple successful phases of possession is not something I have seen England do for a long time, let alone to reach twenty phases and then score a try. It’s similar to the Irish form of attack, yet this seemed somewhat more physically aimless, more geared towards eating up the minutes on the clock. After Ford scored that bonus point try, England were quite happy to soak up pressure and retain energy/minimise injury risk in preparation for the France game (albeit with Billy Vunipola and Joe Marler picking up knocks). The reason this is clear is because once Argentina scored, England instantly responded with two well worked but very different tries, as if to say “no, we’re in control here.”
The real worry here is that England have not faced a tier one nation at the peak of their game since Scotland back in March. Ireland and Wales in the warm ups were somewhat experimental, the Irish not being full strength and the Welsh both beating and losing to England on consecutive weekends. Every other match has been against tier two opposition or – as we saw today – tier one opposition but not full strength. Perhaps Argentina may have won with fifteen men on the pitch. Perhaps England may have won by even more, with emotions on the pitch running high. The point, though, is that we will not know; what happened is England faced a severely weakened Argentina, readily dispatched them, and started thinking about the France match at half time. Now, we can only wait and wonder which French team will turn up in Yokohama on Saturday October 12th.