Mediawatch: `Car crash England`

Monday 16th June 2008

England's media is not known for pulling punches, and the gathered scribes in Auckland spared little ink in their disapproval of the latest attempt at getting a national side together.

'Embarrassing' was the more obvious and most-used of the adjectives - also being a soundbite from England's beleaguered defence coach - 'car-crash England' was the pick of the headlines, and the pressure to improve was heaped upon Martin Johnson and his staff, with at least one journalist pointing his would-be axe at Rob Andrew.

Here are a few teasers from the press reviews of England's defeat...

Stephen Jones of The Times:

"It is surely far too much to expect England to square the series in Christchurch on Saturday, but they should be going full tilt to gain respect and to bring to the three wise Kiwis the smile of recognition that at least they were playing somebody.

"Matt Stevens should survive on the tighthead, but only with a Force 10 attack mounted by his coaches after his ineffective, supine performance yesterday.

"If Stevens is to be the natural successor to Phil Vickery, he needs to show more power and passion and devil than he did in engaging reverse gear against a merely adequate New Zealand front row."

England defence coach Mike Ford:

"It's embarrassing being sat here as defence coach after conceding the tries we did. We've gone through the Six Nations, and I don't think we got busted once in that area in five games, but [today] we got ripped apart."

Tim Glover of The Independent:

"If England have moved on it is only in the sense of replacing their head coach, Brian Ashton... No pressure? England were facing a blitz at Eden Park and if this was supposed to be a bright new dawn, then heaven help them. As for the swimming lessons, the red-rose brigade, apart from a promising start and a spirited end, were out of their depth."

Paul Ackford of The Telegraph:

"A horrible night for England. This was a game that demonstrated that attitude and vitality can only get you so far. To win Test matches in this part of the world, you need more substance and England did not have it and do not look like finding it soon.

"It's about time that someone who hasn't been sacked by the Rugby Football Union became accountable for an England team who have been in disarray for some time. Yesterday was another match in a long line of Tests where England appeared disorganised and devoid of ideas."

Robert Kitson of The Guardian:

"Martin Johnson has been around long enough to recognise an embarrassing defeat - from a range of 12,000 miles, this was a remote-control car crash. Not since Sir Clive Woodward's Lions hurtled back to earth in the first Test of the 2005 series in Christchurch has so much pre-match optimism been so comprehensively punctured.

"England's players have just negotiated a new pay deal with the Rugby Football Union which has more of a performance-related slant to it. Luckily for them the revised agreement has yet to kick in."

P.S. One of the writers also pointed out how much harder second Tests abroad were...