Moment World Cup got real for England

Foden says going down 12-3 to Scotland was wake-up call team needed

BEN Foden was talking about England’s “moment of realism” at Eden Park last Saturday night, the brief seconds when they trailed 12-3 against Scotland and were theoretically heading out of the World Cup. “We knew we could be going home if we didn’t pull our finger out,” he said. “That was a wake-up call. Hopefully it’ll wake us up and teach us that if we want to progress in this competition, then that style of rugby we produced at the end for the try in the corner is needed for the full 80 minutes.”

He’s being quizzed now. He’s been asked about Scotland and a ‘what if’ scenario. What if the Scots only had to win by one point instead of eight at Eden Park? What if at 12-9 ahead they had the luxury of shutting the game down instead of forcing it with the hopeful bomb in the last minutes that merely blew up in their own faces? What if England had lost? They’d have still qualified, but wouldn’t the mood be altogether different in their camp now? Wouldn’t they under even more pressure than they already are in these days before the quarter-final against France?

“Shoulda, woulda, coulda, an if and a but,” Foden replies. “I was fairly confident that we could crawl our way back in and see out the game. Obviously, if all they had to do was win the match, their tactics would have changed a little bit once they got nine points clear. It’s all ifs and maybes. We did what we had to do. We scored 13 points in the last 25 minutes and showed quite a bit of character in doing so. I don’t think Scotland really looked like scoring apart from when they chipped in behind a few times and we scrambled. We’ve only conceded one try in the whole competition, the lowest of any team, and we take massive confidence from that. It showed right at the end when they did that bomb down the middle of the field. It showed they weren’t breaking us out wide and they weren’t finding the holes through the centre, so they reverted to different tactics.”

Desperation tactics, for sure. England did, indeed, show character and class to create that try for Chris Ashton, but they still have issues. Lots of them. The way they are beginning their games is atrocious. They are flat as can be from the first whistle, only rousing themselves when they are in the deepest trouble. Their set-piece can be outstanding but it’s inconsistent right now. Their breakdown is a trouble spot, their attacking game only appearing in fits and starts. Too much of what England have produced so far has been rank ordinary.

And here’s the thing with Foden. He’s not all that inclined to disagree. The subject of England’s strange lack of intensity in the first half against Scotland is raised. “It happened to us when we played Ireland in Dublin as well,” he says of the Grand Slam match that wasn’t. “We sat back and waited to see what was happening around us instead of grabbing the game by the scruff of the neck. Against Scotland we sat back again.

“They went out with a very good gameplan, kicked for territory and really pressurised our breakdown, our scrum and our lineout. They put us under massive pressure. We just need to focus on ourselves and go out and play our rugby instead of sitting back and seeing what other teams throw at us and then react to it. When you’re playing against the better teams, like Ireland in the Six Nations, we waited too long before we reacted and the game was already over. At international level you can’t wait that long.”

These guys have to look for the positives, though. They have to try and turn everything to their advantage. You don’t get too many ‘glass half empty’ players at this level. They’re all trained to draw out the good stuff from the bad.

And this is Foden’s mantra. “It shows good character from ourselves that we can win those games. In the last two or three years we wouldn’t have won [against Scotland], we’d have been on the wrong side of the result. We’re just wrestling through. Only a few teams have been tested that way in this competition. Knockout rugby, that’s what it’s all about. We’ve had a wake-up call but it brings confidence to the side that we are capable of winning games when it comes to the crunch.

“The good thing about England now is that we can win games by playing ugly. Obviously, as a back-three player I want to see the ball going wide, but when you go to international rugby, everything gets tighter, the margin for error is smaller, the defences get better and you have to break down teams in different ways. You have to earn the right to go wide and that comes from getting front-foot ball and that hasn’t been possible in some games. We’ve had to arm-wrestle our way through matches.

“We’re at our best when we play a wide game of rugby, but sometimes it hasn’t gone our way and we haven’t had the ball we’d like. It’s a little bit frustrating, but if we keep winning games 14-10 and manage to win the World Cup doing it that way then I’ll be happy.”

It’s France on Saturday. Now, if you want to talk about troubled camps, the French is where you need to be. Even by their standards, they are outdoing themselves in terms of internal strife. There is, of course, the distinct possibility that all this bad blood and mayhem in their ranks is going to spark a thunderously angry and thoroughly brilliant performance against England. And that is what Foden half- expects.

“France are going to be like a wounded animal. People don’t expect them to perform that well against us, only winning two group games and sort of clambering through, but that’s when they’re at their most dangerous. They’ve got players in their team that are capable of causing carnage out there. They’re a great team when they turn it on, so it’s important to start the game with a bang and score some points in the first 20 minutes.

“Our mentality has to be to take the game to them. They’re in a fragile state and if we give them early points and a lifeline, then they’re good enough to take it. France are a very good team no matter what is happening on and off the field with their coaches and players. It’s 15 versus 15 and if we don’t turn up I’m pretty sure France will take their opportunity.”

The extraordinarily unpredictability of some of what we’ve seen at this World Cup will be writ large over the weekend. A month ago you’d have said that a quarter-final that pitched England against France would be the highlight of the day, but, in truth, the pick of Saturday is Ireland against Wales. A Kiwi wag said that the England game is the battle of the also-rans. It’s hardly that, but neither are setting the pulse racing right now. “We’re four wins from four and we’re in the right place,” said Foden. They’re under the radar, but on Saturday they’ll need to fly higher.