Brian Smith on the Six Nations: How can any team go into international action without a reliable goal-kicker?

COLUMN: I agree with Eddie’s beef about the England players’ fitness – or their lack of it

(2015 Getty Images)

When Jonathan Sexton landed his match-saving penalty towards the end of Ireland’s contest with Wales last weekend, two things struck me. The first thought was one of confirmation: I felt before the start of the Six Nations that Sexton would be a key figure in the outcome of the tournament and as a result of events in Dublin I’m even more convinced of his capacity to keep his countrymen, weakened by injury as they may be, in the chase for a third successive title. There is clear daylight between him and the other No 10s in Europe, for sure.

You have to like his style. He’d been in the thick of it all afternoon and looked pretty beaten up and extremely tired when that opportunity came along, yet he did not betray even a whiff of vulnerability under pressure. In championship rugby, the ability to execute at the tipping point is beyond precious. The Irish are right to treasure him: as soon as Sexton wobbles, the whole team wobbles.

The second thought was one of exasperation. How is it that tier-one international sides end up playing important Test matches without dependable goal-kickers in their starting line-ups?

The France-Italy game made me want to scream long before Sergio Parisse, of all people on the planet, attempted that drop goal at the death – not the kind of thing you’d ever expect to see from a No 8 now that Zinzan Brooke has disappeared into the mists of time.

Patently frustrated that he could not count on a colleague to step up and take responsibility for the decisive act, Parisse must have thought: “I’ve done everything else out here, so why not have a go at this into the bargain and to hell with it?” If his kick didn’t threaten the sticks, it was hardly the first shot to go west in Paris. Neither France nor Italy had a marksman on whom they could rely.

Coaches all over the rugby world will be looking at what happened last weekend and reminding themselves to make their best kicker the first name on the team sheet. You can’t win this tournament – or, indeed, any tournament worthy of the name – if your strike rate is much below 85 per cent. If you’re down around 65 per cent, every game becomes a complete lottery – a bit like playing footy in a monsoon.

You can be bang on the money in all other departments, but if you don’t pick up those extra twos after a try or nail the threes when you’ve forced the opposition into an indiscretion, you’re leaving yourselves open to defeat.

Italy are especially vulnerable in this regard, as they may well discover against England tomorrow. How is it that in a country where football is God and king rolled into one, the rugby hierarchy can’t find a bloke capable of kicking a ball between two sticks? The last reliable points- gatherer to play for the Azzurri was Diego Dominguez… and he was an Argentine!

With all this at the forefront of my mind, I wasn’t at all surprised to see Owen Farrell taking on the kicking duties for England at Murrayfield.

There is no debate as to the identity of England’s most dependable kicker. George Ford, the other candidate, can be 100 per cent one day and 50 per cent the next. Farrell isn’t prey to those swings of fortune. And when you take his defensive security into account, it’s not difficult to see him moving into the outside-half role the moment Manu Tuilagi and Henry Slade are fit to enter the midfield equation.

If Ireland are heading to Paris in good spirits after a drawn game that must have felt like a victory, England go to Rome knowing that, of all the contenders, they have the most favourable fixture schedule. But the biggest bonus for Eddie Jones is the form of Billy Vunipola – a high-class No 8 in a tournament full to overflowing with outstanding talents in the position.

I think Vunipola could be a colossus, especially as his natural sleight of hand gives him a point of difference. The yards he makes on the carry are ridiculously hard, and now that he is turning in 80-minute performances, opponents must really hate the sight of him.

Eddie Jones with his England players (GETTY IMAGES)

With Billy running at the line and two defenders bracing themselves for the impact, little gaps – “seams”, to use the coaching jargon – open up either side of the contact area and give other runners the chance to slip through on the shoulder and make life tough for the opposition. Expect England to develop this attacking strategy over the coming weeks.

That being said, Eddie wouldn’t be Eddie if he didn’t react to a satisfying victory by expressing dissatisfaction about something or other. This week’s beef was about fitness, or lack of it, and I for one could see where he was coming from. I agree that England need to work on this area before heading for Australia in June. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that during last year’s World Cup they didn’t look fit at all. They looked heavy and sluggish instead.

In the Six Nations, often played in poor weather conditions at a slightly slower tempo than you tend to find in southern hemisphere rugby, good teams can just about get away with it. But if England are serious about living with the All Blacks or the Wallabies on hard tracks, their conditioning has to be better.

This is one of my hobby horses, I guess. Modern rugby is full of sports scientists, and they have their place, but to my mind they’re empire builders who are building in the wrong game. You can’t switch on a laptop and measure a player’s heart and soul, his strength of mind when the game gets hard and his mates are ready to cave in. There are strong links between fitness and attitude, so whatever the scientists may say, there’s a point to a coach flogging his team in training. Players who take a beasting together, bond together. You won’t see that on a computer printout.

Brian Smith was England’s attack coach between 2008 and 2011