42 – 6 What’s wrong with the English Rugby Team?

After watching England play to their largest loss at London’s Twickenham Stadium against a lack luster South African side, you have to sit back and ask what’s wrong with them? If you watched this match and the one last weekend against Australia (where they also suffered a large loss) it stands out as pretty obvious. My four simple reasons offered to Martin Johnson – the English coach:

Watching your team fail miserably

1.) Too small behind the front row. Players 4 – 15 just seem a lot smaller than there Southern Hemisphere counter-parts, which probably leads to the next issue…

2.) Too afraid to commit to the tackle and draw defenders – when attacking, England just shuffle the ball across field until they run out of room and hit the sidelines. Very rarely is a player seemingly willing to run at the defence and take it on with ball in hand, this leads to the next issue…

3.) They kick away far too much possession – if you’re too afraid to run with the ball, your only other option is to kick it. Against the back three of any southern hemisphere team this is a dangerous thing to do. And lastly…

4.) It seems that they can’t think fast enough – on attack or defense – if something unexpected happens then they just don’t seem to react as fast as any of the tri-nations teams, they can’t make the right decision in time and so usually make an error or complete throw away of the ball.