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England's players have been told to improve their discipline and tighten up their defence if they want to become serious World Cup contenders. The assistant coaches John Wells and Mike Ford have accepted that aspects of the 13?9 win over Argentina in Dunedin on Saturday were unsatisfactory and have called for a significant improvement against Georgia this weekend.
After the squad relocated to Queenstown, where they will be allowed a couple of days away from the training field, Wells, the forwards coach, made clear that England's penalty count must be reduced.
"When the lads look at it, they'll say one or two of the penalties were pretty dull," said Wells, who is fully aware that referees at this tournament will favour the attacking team. "If you're in defence and in positions where you shouldn't be, rightly or wrongly, the referee is going to come down harshly on you. Everything that came up in the pre?tournament referees' conference in terms of how they were going to referee was refereed on Saturday. We have got no issues with [the referee Bryce Lawrence's] interpretations and I think when you look at the penalty count it ended 15-12 against Argentina."
Ford, the defence coach, was concerned over the missed tackles which allowed Argentina to build momentum and put England under significant pressure.
"Our scramble defence was pretty good but there were times when our first-up defence wasn't good enough," said Ford. "We kept them tryless but I'm not sitting here thinking our defence is the be-all and end-all. We've got a lot of work to do, especially on individual tackling."
The England management are convinced that the fly-half Jonny Wilkinson will bounce back from his disappointing kicking return against the Pumas.
"If I see him kick tomorrow in training or in the next game, I'll put my mortgage on him he won't miss," said Ford. "That's how much we all trust him. I briefly talked to Jonny, he struck the ball pretty well. I was going to say he had an off day but it's really unusual for Jonny to have one of those, isn't it? It was just one of those things."
Wilkinson is likely to spend a large chunk of the week working on his kicking but some of his colleagues have been given licence to sample some of the outdoor pursuits for which Queenstown is famous. The management are keen to ensure the squad do not get bored or restless and they will not be returning to Dunedin to prepare for the Georgia game until Friday.
"It's just a case of giving the guys a break," said Wells. "We could have been coming here following a 9-3 loss to Argentina, which would have been a very different scenario, but it's an opportunity for the guys to freshen up."
Among those hoping the week will end on a positive note is the captain, Lewis Moody, who believes he will be fit to face the Georgians on Sunday. Moody has not played since suffering a knee ligament strain in the warm-up win over Wales at Twickenham on 6 August but he is now back doing contact training.
"The good news for me is that I have cleared a huge hurdle in my battle to play and I'm now more confident of being available for selection against Georgia," said Moody. "I know some people may have written me off, people who don't know me and people who don't know how the England medical team operate. I don't listen to them; it would only make me more annoyed or frustrated. The medical staff knew it was a possibility I would make it for Argentina but only if everything went perfectly, which rarely happens."
Moody's squad failed to impress observers from the southern hemisphere on Saturday. One New Zealand paper declared the tournament could now be won only by New Zealand, Australia or South Africa ? "It's now official: the Rugby World Cup is a three-horse race" ? and the South African World Cup-winning coach Jake White believes England have gone backwards.
"You know Argentina are definitely not as good now as they were in 2007," he said. "England are worse and they [the players] claimed they coached themselves in 2007."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/sep/11/england-rugby-world-cup-argentina
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