Autumn internationals 2010

Anyone seeking answers as to how England's international fortunes can improve would be advised to take a look at events unfolding in Sydney this morning.


It is no secret. The fabled three-match State of Origin series between New South Wales and Queensland, pitching Australia's finest players against each other, gets underway again for a high-octane contest many believe holds greater intensity than any Test match.

It is the brutal arena which makes or breaks players, testing not only their skills but resolve, character and mentality.

Ultimately, it helps moulds them for the Australia jersey; if they can survive the pressure of Origin, they can thrive at the highest level.

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It begs the question why the English game has no similar alternative to offer its potential stars a crucial stepping stone, an imposing fixture which could help sculpt them into superior performers.

Incoming England coach Steve McNamara admits it is something he wants to explore as he searches for the missing ingredient as his players step up to face Australia and New Zealand.

The traditional War of the Roses clash between Yorkshire and Lancashire ended in 1989 after nearly a century of action.

They briefly re-started during the Super League era in 2001 but it disappeared again just two seasons later following a lukewarm response from clubs.

New South Wales selectors, preparing to face a Queensland side boasting such stellar performers as Darren Lockyer, Greg Inglis, Jonathan Thurston and Billy Slater, can afford to leave out Paul Gallen who was part of the Australia side that defeated the Kiwis a fortnight ago as well as last year's Four Nations internationals Robbie Farah, Nathan Hindmarsh, Michael Jennings and Josh Morris.

The English game simply does not have that depth of talent. The other possibility though is England tackling a squad made up of the best overseas imports currently playing in Super League.

Autumn Internationals Hospitality

It is an idea backed by a number of Origin veterans who know the value of representative football.

"It's perfect prep for international footy and probably better in terms of intensity."

Menzies offered an insight into the camaraderie such camps create adding: "You're training every day but it's probably 40 per cent game plan and the other 60 is just wanting to play with your mates.

"The atmosphere is brilliant when it arrives. I never forget before a game at Lang Park up in Brisbane and we'd drive past the Caxton pub. All these Queenslanders would be there throwing tomatoes and beer cans hitting our windows. We could get in another way but the management purposely did it to rev the boys up.

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England see a good deal of value in these annual "hit-outs" against the world's most celebrated invitation team, coming as they do before testing end-of-season visits to the southern hemisphere. Unfortunately for this Australia-bound party, the latest Barbarian combination were all "out" and no "hit" for much of the proceedings at Twickenham yesterday evening. Not only did they miss tackles the average rugby-playing infant might have expected to make, they also showed a distinct lack of interest in trying to make them in the first place.

Between them, the uncapped South African lock Ross Skeate and the similarly undecorated Australian full-back Paul Warwick did everything in their power to present Martin Johnson's side with cheap points, as did two colleagues who know what it is to play Test rugby and should therefore have made a better fist of it: the French centre Florian Fritz (18 international appearances) and the World Cup-winning Leicester second-rower Ben Kay. By the time they had floundered around like four fillets of wet halibut, the soon-to-be tourists were 20 points up and out of sight.

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But they faded, along with everyone else. Amid half-hearted Mexican waves and desultory choruses of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", England proceeded to construct a sow's ear from a silk purse, conceding possession, territory and tries in the most alarming of manners. David Smith, an unusually strong wing from New Zealand, and Census Johnston, a ridiculously strong prop from Samoa, both crossed, transforming a 32-7 deficit into something much more intriguing.

When Sackey took advantage of some high-class work from Cedric Heymans to bag his second try late on, England found themselves praying for close of play. They were a sorry sight: disorganised, lumpen and depressingly short of ideas, they looked increasingly helpless against a ragbag a collection of demob-happy bar-room carousers. The final whistle saved them, which just about said it all.

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Leeds will be without their Samoan prop Kylie Leuluai for Sunday's Super League game at Warrington after he became the latest victim of a tackling technique that the Rhinos coach Brian McClennan describes as a growing concern.

Leuluai suffered ankle damage that could rule him out for several weeks as a result of the impact of a third defender going low during the champions' surprise home defeat by the Crusaders last Sunday.

"My understanding is that more and more players are getting injured by this tackle, down under as well," said McClennan, who claimed that the Rhinos forwards Jamie Peacock and Carl Ablett have also been victims this season.

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"It's a difficult one," the former New Zealand national coach told the Yorkshire Evening Post. "It's not illegal, but it causes injuries. If the third man comes in from the side, you're all right. If he comes in from the back, and you don't see him, your body goes forward, but your foot gets locked in the ground, it gets hyperextended and that causes injuries. We have had three of those this year and it's frustrating.

"I don't imagine anyone's purposefully gone out to do this, but it is frustrating when it happens to your players. We'll encourage players to tackle around the legs too, but you have to take a bit of care when you come right around the back."

Leeds are also likely to be without their former New Zealand full-back Brent Webb for the trip to Warrington after he suffered an ankle injury in training.

The game at Headingley also took its toll on the Crusaders, who were down to 14 players in training at the start of this week ahead of Sunday's home game against Wakefield Trinity. The Crusaders coach Brian Noble said that Gareth Thomas remains at least a fortnight away from recovery from a groin problem.

The second Hull derby of the season has also been rearranged and will now be played on a Thursday night, 15 July, at the KC Stadium to allow live coverage on Sky. Hull's gifted but fragile 22-year-old three-quarter Craig Hall is thought to be considering a move across the city to Hull KR, who are also close to agreeing a new one-year contract with their ball-playing Australian forward Ben Galea.

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This is getting serious. Under Martin Johnson, England have won just eight times in 19 matches, with only one of those conquests, in Rome, occurring on the road. Notable victories are rare.Johnson's honeymoon period ended some months ago.

This might be his first proper tour with a full-strength England squad, given that his top men were with the Lions in South Africa a year ago, but he has experienced two Six Nations tournaments as well as two full sets of autumn internationals. Autumn Internationals Hospitality Packages with the best prices available at Corporate Hospitality Group. We are covering in Autumn Internationals 2010 Hospitality and Tickets.

When England return home towards the end of June, Johnson will have nine more Tests, plus the odd warm-up match, before the World Cup starts in New Zealand in September 2011.

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The in-tray is piling up. By my reckoning, England are vulnerable in three areas and clueless in another. Only at hooker, across the back three, at scrum-half and outside-half can Johnson legitimately point to strength in depth, to situations where he has a genuine choice between candidates of quality. In that sense, the performances of Danny Care, Charlie Hodgson, Chris Ashton, Ben Foden, Steve Thompson and Mark Cueto are of minor interest today.


Ben Youngs is pushing Care, Dylan Hartley is neck and neck with Thompson, Hodgson is on trial to see whether he can be trusted defensively to sit as third-choice play-maker behind Toby Flood and Jonny Wilkinson, and the intrigue among the back three is to see whether they can kick on from the promising entrance they made as a trio against France. The point here is that if they do not, there are plenty of other options left for Johnson to ponder.

The issues in the back row are different again. Johnson would love somehow to bolt a rugby brain on to the fantastic athlete that is James Haskell and perform the reverse procedure on Nick Easter, but with Lewis Moody, Tom Croft, Steffon Armitage, Joe Worsley and newcomer Hendre Fourie all in the mix, there is too much talent and experience for England to be anything other than highly competitive in this area.

Much to think about then this afternoon. At the end of any other season this Baa Baas fixture would be little more than a mild diversion. But with 15 months to go until the World Cup, and with plenty of questions still to answer, not least whether Johnson and his coaches know what they are doing, the contest is anything but.
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Ignore the logistics for a minute and imagine if the Lions toured the southern hemisphere every year, playing one Test annually against Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Now traditional tours by individual countries are thankfully back on the global agenda. From 2012, the leading countries in Europe will play proper three-Test series against the SANZAR giants, plus Argentina, while also returning to the Pacific Islands and even Japan.

In the case of sporting conflict, familiarity so often breeds tedium, which is exactly why pleas for Lions tours to become more frequent have been rightly ignored. Scarcity is part of the appeal.

England will get the ball rolling with a series in South Africa and it will have the feel of a Lions expedition.

A series also gives time for sub-plots and dramas and conflicts to emerge and evolve.

Reviving proper tours in June may be a nod to nostalgia, but the move is founded on commercial imperatives, too, as crowds and revenues are down for these June matches, which are too often one-sided.

With midweek games thrown in it allows fringe players to stay involved and the whole exercise will hold a greater sense of resonance and purpose.

In Europe, attendances and bank balances are well catered for during the November Test window, but proper series would be an improvement then, too.

On the flip-side, when a true contest materialises, as was the case last summer when France won a Test in Dunedin and New Zealand hit back in Wellington, 1-1 is not a satisfactory conclusion. It was crying out for a decider.

This is where the familiarity argument kicks in. Back in the day, a visit by the All Blacks was a major event, but now that mystique and air of expectation has been somewhat eroded by regularity. They have come to Twickenham during the last four years of autumn internationals.

A real series would carry more weight than the endless round of one-off Tests. England could play the likes of Fiji or Samoa at the start of November, followed by a three-Test series against New Zealand, Australia, South Africa or Argentina.

In the interests of expansion, the RFU could take one match each year to the provinces - to Old Trafford, Villa Park or St James’ Park.

The public don’t moan about repetition during an Ashes series, which comes to these shores once every four years.

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Olly Barkley last night backed Martin Johnson's demand that the England rugby squad behave themselves on tour next month.

Johnson wasted no time yesterday in issuing a stark warning of the "pitfalls" which potentially lie await for them off the field on a five-match mission to Australia and New Zealand.

It will be England's first trip Down Under since the 2008 tour to New Zealand when allegations of serious sexual assault were made against four of the squad.

"In the world we live in there are pitfalls, some can be put there deliberately, some are just the pitfalls that young guys face when they're out and about in big cities

"We'll be together for three and a half weeks in hostile territory, staying in different hotels and city centre locations," he said. "There will be distractions and potential areas to get embroiled in so we'll need to be smart and look after each other.

No formal complaint was made in 2008 against the so-called Auckland Four of Danny Care, David Strettle, Topsy Ojo and Mike Brown, whom NZ police sought to interview over claims made by an 18-year-old woman.

"I don't think they will be targets but this is the world we live in. People have cameras on their phones these days."

But Barkley acknowledges that the whole episode was a wake-up call and that it is vital no-one invites embarrassment onto the tour this time.

Indeed, an RFU inquiry found no evidence of any such incident having taken place - though it did adjudge Ojo and Brown guilty of misconduct for staying out all night.

"The management and the players are confident we will all adhere to that.

"We've put the 2008 issue behind us and there's now a code of conduct in place," said a player who has had his own off-field problems in the past.

The difference between this one and the last is that Johnson will be with it every step of the way. In 2008 he stayed home to await the birth of his second child and in his absence chaos ensued.

"The big thing is if you don't you compromise not only the squad but the individuals involved as well. That's the last thing anyone wants to do to a tour that we're all so positive about."

At Twickenham yesterday he left nobody in any doubt that he will be on top of matters in Perth and in Sydney and across the Tasman Sea in Napier.

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The Rugby Football Union and Team England Rugby have settled a players' payment dispute ahead of the upcoming tour to Australia and New Zealand.

An independent third party was called in to settle the dispute and the RFU and TER have accepted their recommendations ahead of the opening clash against the Barbarians in Perth on June 8.

Martin Johnson's men face two friendlies with Australia Barbarians and two Tests against Australia before making a trip to take on New Zealand Maori in Napier in June, but the tour looked in doubt after the two groups failed to find some common ground over payments for the 44-man squad.

However, the finer details of the players' payments will not be made known to the public.

A basic tour fee of £7,800 was thought to have been offered with an extra £5,000 on offer for every man that made Johnson's squad of 22 for the two Tests against Australia with the other half of his squad receiving no extra incentives.

"Both sides met today with the independent third party appointed to review the situation, and accepted their recommendations.

A joint statement made by the RFU and TER read: "The Rugby Football Union and Team England Rugby are pleased to announce that they have resolved all the outstanding issues over tour payments for the elite player squad for the tour to Australia and New Zealand.

"The details of the final resolution remain confidential and will not be disclosed by either party."

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