‘Got a bit of a rocket’: How England bounced back from galling loss to Fiji at Twickenham

England needed urgent improvement after a meek loss to Fiji in a World Cup tune-up. WILL KELLEHER discovers how defence coach Kevin Sinfield inspired the squad with a few home truths.

England defeated Argentina 27-10 in their World Cup opener. Picture: Michael Steele - World Rugby/World Rugby via Getty Images

The moment when England had to look each other square in the eye and address their attitude and application in defence came in the days after their galling defeat by Fiji at Twickenham.

Not only had they lost – 30-22 – but they had missed 27 tackles in a home Test. They were ragged, lacking in energy and meek. Something needed to change, and fast.

The defence coach, Kevin Sinfield, under pressure as England had conceded 23 tries in their previous six Tests, sat the players down as a group and spelled that out frankly.

“We got a bit of a rocket after that game,” Freddie Steward, the fullback, said. “There were no complaints about that, it needed to happen. We had a very thorough review, which we needed, and we reaped the benefits [in the win against Argentina]. That was necessary for that to happen.”

Kevin Sinfield (left) made his expectations clear. Picture: Dan Mullan – RFU/The RFU Collection via Getty Images

Sinfield was concerned that his players were not transferring the abilities they were showing in training to the games. “The big message was we have to be better,” he said of that team meeting after the Fiji defeat. “The boys have been excellent. I’ve really enjoyed working with them, but we’d not seen the transfer.”

He knew it would take time for the England team, coming from a smattering of Premiership clubs, to foster the sort of personal bonds he built at Leicester Tigers. There his main message was that players had to fight for each other; the Leicester players found a purpose in the season they won the league title in 2022, after their captain Tom Youngs’s wife died, and were inspired by Sinfield’s backstory and charity work for his former Leeds Rhinos teammate Rob Burrow, who has motor neurone disease.

With England, though, that sense of brotherhood – so vital to underpinning a strong defence – was absent, with the World Cup looming.

“That’s what you get when you pull players from 11 or 12 different clubs,” Sinfield said. “It takes some time to get them on the same page. It takes them to understand each other and how their games fit together. We’ve worked particularly hard on that. You’ve got to defend for the guy next to you and understand and have some trust that he’s going to be there for you. The best teams have that.”

Freddie Steward had worked with Kevin Sinfield at Leicester. Picture: Dan Mullan – RFU/The RFU Collection via Getty Images

Those who worked with him at Tigers, like Steward, felt bad that their work on the field was exposing Sinfield to criticism.

“That’s what makes Kev such a good defence coach, he’s so inspiring,” Steward said. “He’s the sort of bloke you don’t want to let down. That’s testament to him. When you go out there, part of it is you do it for him. You don’t want to see a guy like that, who puts his heart and soul into us in his work with his defence, feel let down.

“Kev is big on covering each other’s backs. That’s his big thing. He wants a defensive unit that are going to work incredibly hard for each other and, when it goes wrong, cover up for each other.”

Then, in Marseille as England beat Argentina on Saturday, they belatedly found the spirit they had been searching for. They still missed 23 tackles, and made only 79 per cent of those they attempted, but there was something about the way that England hunted their opponents, banged and clanged, that showed a distinct change in intent.

Ben Earl shot out of the line to go after the fly half Santiago Carreras in the first minute, Courtney Lawes and Maro Itoje were full of disruptive energy, and in the second half Manu Tuilagi produced a wonderful walloping hit on his opposite number, Santiago Chocobares, which lifted everyone.

“That was a big hit, wasn’t it? Massive hit,” Steward said. “It’s nice at 15 when you are behind the line and you just see the collision, it’s brilliant.”

Sinfield smiled widely watching that tackle. “It was great, great to see him back to some of that,” he said. “I don’t think he was on his own either. There were some pretty good shots out there.”

England’s defence is not fixed. They still concede three points on average each time the opposition enters their 22 – the worst record of the top ten nations – and have been shown more cards in 2023 than any other team. Tom Curry’s early departure against Argentina was their fourth in six games, and ninth card – red or yellow – in ten Tests (although Steward’s against Ireland was later rescinded).

Tom Curry was given a red card for a dangerous tackle on Juan Cruz Mallia. Picture: Lionel Hahn/Getty Images

That made England’s defensive work more remarkable, as they played almost 78 minutes with 14 men, 68 of those with one fewer man than the Pumas. It also meant Tuilagi packed down at flanker. “The back row is the heartbeat of the defence and to lose Tom, after the work he has put in, was tough for us,” Sinfield said. “We knew he was going to have a big game from the way he trained and the influence he had on the group. We are all disappointed for him.

“It is clearly more difficult to do that with 14 men on the field. I thought we handled it really well, but I don’t want us to keep handling that. None of us do. We are a better team with 15 on the field.”

Sinfield is the coach who runs the England players’ “tackle school”, an option given to those who have been cited for poor tackle technique so they can knock a week off their suspension. He took Billy Vunipola through the course – where the tackle in question is repeated several times, filmed and sent to a World Rugby panel for review.

Vunipola, who was sent off in the World Cup warm-up Test against Ireland, is now free to play, and could come into the back row to replace Curry for the Japan game, if the flanker is himself banned at his hearing.

Steve Borthwick tells @Sonjamclaughlan England “put a large emphasis on discipline and safety” in training.

Players must know where they stand then.

But Billy Vunipola didn’t look like a man who understood why he’d been sent from the field.#IREvENGpic.twitter.com/5U7MSh8fR8

— Progressive Rugby (@ProgressiveRug) August 19, 2023

“We have worked hard on his technical skill again and will continue to do that,” Sinfield said of Vunipola. “People expect it just to be fixed because they have gone through tackle school, but just because you do a speed awareness course doesn’t mean you are never going to speed again, so we continue to do that. These guys are humans and will make mistakes and we will continue to mitigate that.”

The defence coach is delighted to have England’s only specialist No 8 back, though. “He is one of those players that lifts people and once he is on the field he gets sevens out of ten and eights out of ten out of those people around him,” Sinfield said.

Sinfield knows his defence faces a starkly different challenge against Japan this week. They move the ball far more than Argentina, looking to play at speed and to stretch England from one wing to the other with their “ruck-and-run” style.

At least, though, he is now building his wall from bricks, not straw – although he was disappointed England failed to prevent Argentina from scoring a try in Marseille. “To do that against a world-class team like Argentina would have sent a message out,” he said. “It shows we’ve still got plenty left to do. We saw a fight, a spirit and attitude that the people at home supporting us and in the ground would have loved to have seen. For us as coaches that is particularly pleasing, but we know we need to be better.”

Originally published as ‘Got a bit of a rocket’: How England bounced back from galling loss to Fiji at Twickenham