Watch out for 'angry' England in Six Nations
by Brenden Nel | 08 December 2009 (08:43)
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| Lawrence Dallaglio © Gallo Images |
Watch out for an “angry” England in next year’s Six Nations, former England captain Lawrence Dallaglio believes.
Dallaglio gave a harsh assessment of England’s Autumn internationals, where they faired poorly, but won’t join the lynching mob that is currently seeking a change of coaching staff for the team.
The former flanker, who was a guest of Emirates at last weekend’s Dubai Sevens, told SuperRugby he believed that a different England will come out to the Six Nations and their attitude is likely to electrify the tournament.
“I think we will see a different England in the Six Nations. There willbe a group of fairly angry young men and coaches. Winning the Six Nations is a realistic aim,” Dallaglio explained. “This is the first Six Nations after the Lions series. Rugby players cannot keep going on full and there will be a lot of tired rugby players come February and March.
“Ireland and Wales gave 16 and 14 players to the Lions series that takes a lot out of you. I may be proved wrong here but the true winners areprobably France who will be rubbing their hands in delight because they havent had the sort of pressures our rugby players have been put under.
“I still think England will do well. They finished second last year in the Six Nations and I said after the loss to NZ that I felt England would win it. People think I am mad but they will be stung by the criticism, they will have all their players fit again and a team with a point to prove are dangerous.
They have Wales and Ireland at home so the fixture list does favour England and I genuinely think they will be there or thereabouts.”
However, while Dallaglio was positive about the future, he was more damning when assessing what went wrong for England in the Autumn internationals.
“I think the one positive of the autumn was that without too much rugby England are now up to six in the IRB world rankings. Whenever things are going badly you learn a lot about yourself. Lewis Moody was a real positive - but there wasn't a huge amount to be positive about it, even though some people have tried to say there was. I heard the quote 'we are losing better now', which is not the best thing for a team.
But Dallaglio stopped short of criticising manager Martin Johnson, a former teammate and someone he has not always seen eye to eye with.
“The success of a team is never down to one individual, it is about the chemistry between individuals. Martin inherited a coaching team of John Wells, Mike Ford and Jon Callard. They decided to remove Brian Ashton and bring in Brian Smith.
“If you look at Graham Henry's coaching experience prior to taking on the All Blacks job it was quite considerable. He has coached Wales and the Lions. Wayne Smith and Steve Hansen have coached all over the world. New Zealand's coaches have a huge amount of experience that England don't have. Every time England play Martin is going up against the best coaches in the world.
“Inevitably as a coach, no matter how good you are, you will make mistakes early on in your career. Andy Robinson was an example of that and now he is a much better coach. If Martin feels he has the right team around him, ultimately he will live and die by his results. At the moment the jury is very much out but he has a Six Nations campaign to come.
“Martin has some decisions to make - but he has clearly decided not to make any rash decisions. One of his strengths as a person is that whenever he was involved in a team that played well he never got too carried away and the same when things went badly. He played the same in the World Cup final as he would for his local team. He is that sort of guy. In the face of criticism he is remaining quite calm. "
However if the Six Nations goes badly, the knives will be out for Johnson.
Read more on the latest rugby news page.
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