AUCKLAND — England headed off to Waiheke Island, a 40-minute ferry ride from Auckland, for a Sunday lunch that would have had a bitter taste.
Steve Borthwick’s men added a 24-17 defeat at Eden Park to the 16-15 one in Dunedin a week earlier and both left the tourists with a sense of what might have been.
They have ticked off being competitive against New Zealand, have probably earned a bit of respect but they have not dealt in the hard currency of international sport: wins.
After the game Borthwick recounted how he had been subjected to taunts by some members of the Kiwi public who didn’t think England even deserved to be playing at the All Blacks spiritual home. He delivered the stories of his encounters with the locals in typical deadpan style which left captain Jamie George unable to suppress a smile.
“A lot of people were saying after the first Test that New Zealand were going to get so much better,” Borthwick said. “I was being told by people in the street about 10 times a day how much we were going to get blown away at Eden Park.
“I was stopped on the street on Friday by a gentleman who told me that they had unpicked our rush defence, they knew how they were going to beat it, and were going to deliver that. I said ‘thank you for that’.
“I was told in the lift today that it was a privilege for us to play at Eden Park and we would be lucky if we were to get away with less than 50 points conceded.”
All pretty standard stuff for rugby tourists down here but Borthwick’s side deserved more than to come away with no wins in the series.
They had the best starting player on the pitch, in Maro Itoje, on Saturday with New Zealand full-back Beauden Barrett, again changing the game off the bench. Itoje now has 10 weeks off and, after being on the go for 13 months, he deserves to put his feet up. He nearly got England over the line, but they just fell short as they did in Dunedin, in Lyon against France in the Six Nations and in Paris in the World Cup semi-final against South Africa.
Itoje’s partner at lock, George Martin, is here to stay as are Chandler Cunningham-South and the wings Tommy Freeman and Immanuel Feyi-Waboso. But England have problems at tight-head with Dan Cole, at 37, still the best option and not much coming up behind him and Will Stuart, with Kyle Sinckler ineligible after moving to France.
There are big hopes for Bath’s Billy Sela, currently at the Under-20s World Championships in South Africa, but he may not be ready for the autumn internationals.
And guess who is first up at Twickenham on 2 November? Yep, New Zealand who England have hardly played in 10 years and now face three times on the bounce. That date should have a big red circle around it in Borthwick’s diary, because New Zealand got away with two matches here and to let them make it a hat-trick would be a sporting crime.
Barrett altered the course of both Test matches after coming on as a replacement and was ultimately the difference between the two sides. It makes you wonder what he would do if he started every week. He made Mark Tele’a’s second try and had a hand in denying George one, late on the game, whether legally or illegally but he showed the value of the experience of 125 caps and you can’t buy that.
“He had a significant influence on the game, everyone could see that, the way he dealt with some tricky situations in his own 22 and ended up putting New Zealand in a pretty favourable field position a number of times, as well as his distribution and threat in that wider channel.” Borthwick said.
“You can’t accelerate the experiences. Look at that New Zealand team and they bring him on, one of the world’s best players, and his impact is phenomenal.”
What he could have done with a Barrett of his own to come on and close out the game with 20 or so minutes left when England still led.
Borthwick has the side in better shape than they were before the World Cup, when they managed to lose a warm-up game to Fiji but now won’t see his players until before the November series which also includes games against South Africa, Australia and Japan.
And even a lunch of locally caught snapper and a glass of white won’t wash away the frustrating taste of the last two weeks down under. Maybe revenge will be served cold at Twickenham but that is a few months off.