Ollie Phillips: England must solve Smith-Farrell conundrum
Tomorrow’s match against Australia is a must-win for England, having been well beaten in the opening Test of the series in Perth last weekend.
They were on top for the majority of the game but just failed to capitalise in the moments where it was pretty even – their two late tries saved face in their 30-28 loss to the Wallabies.
England questions
I am surprised head coach Eddie Jones has stuck with the Marcus Smith-Owen Farrell partnership at fly-half and inside centre.
It didn’t seem to work too well last week given the attacking ability of the side and a tough, foreign tour might have been the perfect place to try something new out.
Farrell is the orchestrator for Saracens and used to controlling everything while at Harlequins Smith uses the zippy Danny Care to give him a platform.
They’re different players but both fly-halves for their clubs – so the national side, too, should pick one and go with it.
I am excited to see Guy Porter get the nod at No13 even if it means the squad is without a place for Joe Marchant.
He’s a big ball carrier – much like the Springbok Andre Esterhuizen, who Smith is so used to feeding at Harlequins.
And it’s a first start for Tommy Freeman too, though I am surprised Henry Arundell hasn’t started after his brilliant try off the bench last week.
Freeman, like his opposite wing Jack Nowell, likes to go looking for the ball and we have seen that being a key pillar of Jones’s set up.
And finally it is worth a nod to Courtney Lawes who will pick up his 100th international cap at the Suncorp Stadium. He’s been one of England’s best servants; an absolute machine.
It’s going to be a close match tomorrow in Brisbane and England could just nick it but a missed kick here or a stupid yellow card there, like last week, will make all of the difference.
Around the grounds
On the other summer tours, I thought Wales were excellent last week in their narrow loss to the Springboks – in fact, it was their best game under coach Wayne Pivac – but feeding off South African mistakes again showed their lack of creativity.
It is also fair to say that they bottled it, falling to a superior forward game from the home side.
South Africa have rung the changes while Wales have made just one, but I still think the home side are favourites.
I’m starting to admire Ireland’s reluctance to start anyone at fly-half other than Johnny Sexton. He is class – way above any other option – but eventually he will go and his side will be rudderless.
They will lose heavily again at the hands of the All Blacks tomorrow morning and consign their series to failure.
Scotland will be fuming with their loss against Argentina, having hyped themselves up as potential 2-0 series winners.
The best they can do now is draw but that’s where Scotland are now, and I am not sure they’ll be able to build too much further without the likes of Stuart Hogg, Finn Russell and Chris Harris.
Former England Sevens captain Ollie Phillips is the founder of Optimist Performance, experts in leadership development and behavioural change. Follow Ollie on Twitter and on LinkedIn.