Saturday night was the rock bottom of England’s performances at a major sporting tournament in the 21st century.
A good 70,000+ English men and women belted out ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ prior to the kick-off. If you bottled the energy in the stadium in would’ve shattered the glass.
So why, when we have a home nation behind the team at what is the world’s third largest sporting event – behind the Summer Olympics and the football World Cup – do our boys bottle it again?
I think the passion gets the better of us.
When you have adrenaline pumping through your veins and act spontaneously, you are more likely to act irrationally, or, in a sportsman’s case, perform badly. For example, if you were walking down the street in the middle of the day and bumped into someone, both of you would – like true Brits – apologise to one another, hastily keep walking and go back on your phone. However, if you bumped into the same person who’d just been drinking on a night out, in the dark, they may consider taking a swing for you.
This theory can be applied in what happened to the England's rugby boys last night. At the start of the game every England surge towards the Australia 22 was met with a raucous roar from the Twickenham faithful. But when England found themselves 17-3 down at the break, you just knew we didn’t have it in us to come back.
Because as much as we’re a nation who believes in our sport teams, we’re very quick to lose belief when things start to go badly. A lack of belief from 70,000+ home supporters breeds into the players and they themselves play out the self-fulfilling prophecy that they can’t turn things around.
So here’s what I think. It would be ideal to win at sport playing aesthetically and with passion all of the time, just ask Arsene Wenger – he’s been trying to do it for the last 10 years. The Arsenal coach experienced some terrific years near the start of his reign. And why was that? He had a team of switched-on battlers. Tony Adams, Sol Campbell, Patrick Vieira, Jens Lehman, Gilberto Silva. Men. Four of those five names comprised the ‘Invincibles’ side of the 03/04 Premier League season.
I’m not saying those players didn’t play with passion – quite the opposite, actually – but they always had the belief that their team could succeed, regardless of how challenging the circumstances were. You will not see Mesut Ozil win Arsenal a game when they’re 2-0 down away at a big club. They are currently a team by and large comprised of luxury players. That doesn’t win you titles. Ok, it’s won them two FA Cups, and I’m by no means slating the FA Cup, but that’s just winning six games in a row for a Premier League club.
The continual test of your side over 10 months shows how good you are. Last year they beat Hull, Brighton, Middlesbrough, Manchester United, Reading, and Aston Villa. The only achievement there is beating Manchester United. You can only play what you’re drawn against, but I’m just saying the actual achievement of winning that FA Cup, from a ruthless viewpoint, was not grand.
Anyway, this was about rugby wasn’t it? I’m surprised by what happened last night mainly because of the impression I get from Stuart Lancaster. He is a hard-grafting Northerner; he worked on a farm during his childhood. He was a PE teacher, he is never late for a press conference, he constantly carries a tome with him to make notes on the team. He is fastidious and calm. So the manner of the loss last night strikes me as very surprising.You can only prepare your players and once they take the field it is up to them. They are younger, probably starry-eyed by the thought of scoring the try, making the drop kick or kicking out the ball which means England have won the game and most probably qualified for the quarter-finals.
Yesterday England became the first home nation to not progress from the group stage in the Rugby World Cup. Play with Andy Tate’s coaching starter pack of “blood and thunder, passion, sweat, tears”, but play with it all the time. Keep the crowd buzzing, because it’s a reciprocal relationship.
As a supporting nation we are never expecting, always believing. The players need to change that.
Source: DSG
