\n<\/p>\n
I did not enjoy my first few games for England.<\/b><\/p>\n
My first cap came in 1995 and I started all four games in the 1996 Five Nations, which we won on the final game.<\/p>\n
I may have been living the dream, but it was not much fun to play in.<\/p>\n
Pass and kick – I was under very clear and rigid instructions.<\/p>\n
My running game helped me gain international recognition, but I was unable to express myself on the field.<\/p>\n
As my confidence grew, I understood that going off script was not a rebellion if done at the right time.<\/p>\n
In fact, it gained you more respect – if the decision was the right one – from the coaching staff.<\/p>\n
Being brave enough to say in a huddle “guys, we do need to do X, Y and Z here to win” is what I want from this England team.<\/p>\n
I know I sound like a broken record, but only a player has a feel for the game on the pitch.<\/p>\n
England stuck to their box-kick-heavy strategy in the 23-18 Six Nations defeat by Italy and it failed them.<\/p>\n
Right on half-time in Rome, Fin Smith took the ball and went off script, bouncing to the blindside to find Tom Roebuck with a neat cross-field kick for England’s try.<\/p>\n
Would head coach Steve Borthwick have gone after him in the changing room for playing heads-up rugby? No.<\/p>\n
Smith was brave and delivered the right decision under pressure.<\/p>\n
That is the only major player-led decision that jumps out at me from Saturday’s historic defeat.<\/p>\n
It is difficult to list which individuals played badly against Italy – it was just silly errors at key times.<\/p>\n
Sam Underhill and Maro Itoje were both having good games, but their second-half yellow cards proved costly.<\/p>\n
Underhill’s high tackle can happen, but Itoje’s penalty was a rush of blood to the head and showed a lack of clear thinking.<\/p>\n
It put England in a pressure situation that they simply could not rise to in the final quarter.<\/p>\n
Their ability to adapt to a changing picture in front of them has been a weakness all tournament.<\/p>\n
There was no urgency until the last passage of play, when the shackles came off and Ollie Chessum broke clear.<\/p>\n
The talent within this squad is so clear, but they are performing under their potential.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I did not enjoy my first few games for England. My first cap came in 1995 and I started all four games in the 1996 Five Nations, which we won on the final game. I may have been living the dream, but it was not much fun to play in. Pass and kick – I<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}