DUNEDIN — Steve Borthwick and his England side flew north to Auckland with the aching feeling they had missed a golden opportunity to beat the All Blacks in their own backyard.
The odds on them getting anything out of the business end of this tour lengthened significantly after their 16-15 defeat with the venue for Saturday’s second Test being Auckland’s Eden Park. That is one of the strongholds of rugby union, and New Zealand have not lost there since 1994. The hosts will be stronger for the run-out in Dunedin and will have had an extra week’s preparation.
But captain Jamie George and Maro Itoje know what it is like to go to Eden Park and get out of there with something. They were part of the British & Irish Lions side who drew the final Test of 2017 there, 15-15, which left the series all square.
England had everything going for them heading to the Forsyth Barr Stadium on Saturday night but came up just short. They had been together since 10 June, had a tune-up against Japan, two weeks previously, whereas the hosts had only had their full squad together for 10 days.
But there are reasons for optimism that England can fly in the face of history, get a result in Auckland and finish the series 1-1.
Marcus Smith left eight points out there on the pitch in Dunedin. If he had had his kicking boots on and channelled his inner Bukayo Saka, England would be 1-0 up already. And like their footballing counterparts they could point to the scoreboard and mutter “job done”.
One alternative to Smith might be to hand the kicking duties to Henry Slade who was knocking them over in his sleep for Exeter Chiefs last season.
The common consensus down here is that now New Zealand have got one game out of their system they would win more comfortably next week. Coaches always talk about taking the positives out of defeats, often wrongly, but Borthwick has plenty to be happy about heading into next week and a few easy fixes to make.
England conceded 10 penalties, just about on the limit of acceptability, but if they could reduce them by a couple and make improvements in their set-piece, and cut out some sloppy errors, that would give them a foothold. They were not helped by losing prop Joe Marler in the first quarter and having to throw Fin Baxter on for his debut against a very strong New Zealand front row.
Baxter has shown up well for Harlequins against big French forwards in the Champions Cup but this was a different matter and he will be better for the run. Away from that, England made a mess of the New Zealand line-out, with Itoje in tip-top form and full-back George Furbank was a contender for the attacker of the match title with his runs from deep. Tidy up a bit of finishing in the 22, as they did for Immanuel Feyi-Waboso’s try, and England’s second, and Borthwick’s crew could be in business.
Felix Jones’ defensive system, built on line speed and led by centre Slade, got in the faces of New Zealand and forced them into errors. There was resilience and England have now got the feeling they can really compete with the All Blacks. Most of them were playing their first game against New Zealand on Saturday, and have never been to Eden Park, so they might be wondering what all the fuss is about.
New Zealand knew all about Itoje, and he delivered again on Saturday putting in a world class performance to get amongst the hosts.
They might not have known about lock George Martin, back row Chandler Cunningham-South or wing Feyi-Waboso, but that trio of youngsters is fully on Scott Robertson’s radar now. In the Midlands they say Martin is the best second row to come out of there since the great Martin Johnson and he is on an upward trajectory. Feyi-Waboso, with and without the ball, was a nuisance all evening.
This is a new England side but they gave New Zealand the hurry-up and will feel they can do it again, and with some tinkering, get on the right side of the result.
“The exciting thing is that we have played against a New Zealand squad who had 200 more caps than our squad and their average age was two years older than our average age,” Borthwick said.
“I don’t want there to be a ceiling for this team. We asked the players to bring all their strengths on to the pitch and play big, and that’s what they did.”
If they can play slightly bigger at Eden Park, and kick their goals, England have a shot.