Notice how the line comes up. In an arrow. The point man marks the outside, but the inside man passively watches. The line integrity is lazy. The inside man should be watching Duhan and protecting the head rush from the inside run. He doesn't. Both should have done better, but the lack of support defines England's poor defence in recent times. The next two defenders are fodder. It was just good intelligent running after that, and strength to hold off the last man. It's a warning to us. We like to defend in greater numbers, and this can conceal the limitations of our weak one-on-one tacklers, but a blown assignment, as we saw very often last year, will be picked apart by that kind of running. In the Lions series, they had periods where they just ran at us, and we folded. Last year, there wasn't really a team that could sustain those incisions with composed support and handling. Australia came the closest, and we looked helpless. If we face a side that can run at us like that, and support the runner, we are going to have a very, very hard day at the office! What is worrisome, is that Erasputin is building the team around fast straight runners, and that affects how we can defend. We are quite small, and even players like De Allende, who might weigh a lot, cannot demonstrate strength. It's an awkward mix. Are we going to be a running side, or are we going to be attack from defence and set pieces? We didn't do the former very well in any game last year. A team full of runners prone to turnovers and no creators and distributors. Is the plan to play off of 10, with Libbok? And change our entire shape? It's a heck of a gamble. A real muddle right now. I don't think Erasputin knows quite what he wants to do. He looks to be hoping that an individual can conceal the limitations of the gameplan. What's clear is that his analytics is poor, his game-planning and in-game management is continually shown up by opposition coaches. We aren't going to get to where we need to be with him at the helm.
