Tindall: Irish victory undeserved
His players don’t need telling that their discipline is killing them. To a man on Saturday night, they shook their heads ruefully and chastised themselves in a manner which The Da Vinci Code’s mad monk would have surely approved.
There was no dressing, no smokescreen and Mike Tindall was more forthright than most. Some games are won, more again are lost and the Gloucester centre had no hesitation in categorising this latest defeat.
“Ireland didn’t deserve to win that game, really. We have given them that game. We have got to look at that, take that on our own shoulders, on our own heads. It is a massive disappointment. You could say that we gave Wales the game as well.
“It is frustrating and it is going to hurt. It should hurt. What the boys have to do now is generate the positives out of it and make sure that we can learn from these experiences.”
Like Johnson, Tindall came out with his hands up after and accepted the visitors had fashioned a noose for themselves with their inability to heed the laws of the game but he feels they weren’t alone.
“The frustrating thing from our side is that we see teams slowing the ball down on their side the whole time. David Wallace was immense at it, so was (Paul) O’Connell. Just lying on our ball.
“We are squeaky clean, standing off, letting them have fast ball and somehow we end up giving penalties away. That’s how I see it as a player. It may be different looking on. I don’t know.”
The whys and wherefores are immaterial. The fact is that England are committing hari kari every time they lace up their boots and the inquisition is beginning to turn from why to who.
Johnson, as manager, carries the ultimate responsibility but one explanation may be the lack of leaders in the England team. True or not, it is the players, not the coaches, who must find a remedy according to captain Steve Borthwick.
“The players are the only ones that can remedy this situation. We are responsible for the decisions we make on the field. The last two weeks we have been very close to winning Test matches against very good opposition away from home.
“We have lost both of them. Ultimately the coaches are the ones that can talk about it but it is the players that have to remedy it. Every one of us is angry. We are angry about ourselves collectively. We are all responsible for this.”
The epidemic has infected everyone, backs and forwards, young and old, but solving the problem may take some time. None of the players interviewed afterwards in Croke Park could even explain what the problem was.
“I can’t put my finger on what it is,” said Mark Cueto. “We have created a reputation for ourselves and that is not helping. We showed in the first-half that we don’t need to do it. We have got to take responsibility rather than pointing the finger at anyone.
“We are all disappointed and frustrated. We have been under a lot of pressure, criticised by you guys and everyone else but, deep down, we know what we can do. It is not quite happening yet. That’s the difference at this level. It is a fine line.”
Johnson must be tearing his hair out because there were clear signs two days ago that England are on the road to recovery. Like all coaches starting from scratch, he has started with his defence, which was superb in Dublin.
Cueto said as much when he pointed out that he felt “massively comfortable” on the few occasions when Ireland were camped inside their 22. They should, he said, have trusted their defence more. Lee Mears agreed.
“We are going to have to be harder on each other when we give penalties away,” said the hooker. “You could see from our defence out there that we played right on the edge of the line.
“Some of our defence was fantastic but we have to be careful when we were on the back foot. Sometimes it is just better to let the other team have the ball and trust your defence.”
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