Larder puts the case for England's defence

The three Wise Men dispense their wisdom in three extremely different ways. Clive Woodward cherishes the cut and thrust of the public forum, the verbal sparring with his interrogators, the point-scoring rebukes, the caustic one-liners. He was unusually nice about Eddie Jones, his bête noire from Australia, for an entire week before the World Cup final against the Wallabies, but the effort drained him of tact and discretion. A few hours before the big match, he perked himself up by aiming a restorative swipe at the Scots, who had been back home for the best part of a fortnight.

Andy Robinson, on the other hand, treads a safer path. The assistant coach knows what he thinks, but prefers to keep the details to himself. When asked to raise his battered flanker's head above the parapet, he says the right things about the right people in the right places. If England were playing Middle Wallop Extra Thirds on a ploughed field off the A303, he would put on his serious face and highlight the threat posed by their state-of-the-art rolling maul. "Middle Wallop are not to be taken lightly," he might snarl.

Then there is Phil Larder, who always gives a straight answer to a straight question, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of big-name players without fear or favour. Unfortunately, questions to Larder are about as common as camels in Norway. Larder is England's defensive specialist, and defence does not set the juices flowing. If attack has sex appeal, defence is Ena Sharples in a panty-girdle. The supporter on the terrace is gripped by defensive strategy in the way innumerate schoolchildren are gripped by logarithms.

Yet a Larder debrief on the opening Six Nations game in Rome, in which England scored a half-century of points while denying the opposition so much as a single try - the 17th time they have achieved this since the 1999 World Cup - is an address from the pulpit, full of Wesleyan fervour.

"Take Andrea De Rossi, the Italian captain," he said this week. "From previous experience, we knew him to be one of the most destructive ball-carrying flankers around - not just in Europe, but in the world. Tremendously strong. But we studied him closely enough to realise something else: he doesn't off-load the ball in the tackle. Never seen him do it in all the footage I've seen. So, we said to our blokes: 'If it's De Rossi bringing it up, hit him in twos and threes and don't worry about the gaps you leave. He won't pass it.'

"Another case in point: Sergio Parisse, their No 8. Class player, Parisse, a big talent. But he always carries the ball under his right arm, and generally looks to pass from right to left. When he was running at us on Sunday, we packed the space off his right shoulder. The tactic worked, because the players took the information on board and acted on it. Every opponent has his little habits and predictabilities, and by identifying them, you can minimise their impact."

Larder has certainly minimised Scotland's impact; they have not scored a try against England since 2000, when Duncan Hodge scuba-dived his way across the line in what amounted to a rectangular pond to wrap up a 19-13 victory that has been avenged with increasing ruthlessness every year since. In recent matches, the Scots have averaged five points a game - a figure that just about puts them ahead of Romania and the Netherlands, but leaves them below Georgia and Uruguay. As this evening's game at Murrayfield approaches, it is they who see the English as insufferably parsimonious.

Fifty-nine next month, Larder has been central to England's unprecedented success over the last four years, during which they have won a world title, a Grand Slam, three Six Nations' Championships and 43 of their 48 internationals at an average cost of 13 points a game. In the modern era, 13 points is nothing; the last time England scored 13 points or less was against the Springboks in Pretoria in the summer of 2000, when the three Magi first joined forces. Larder's record, based on attention to detail and a rare ability to transmit his enthusiasm for that detail to his players, is astonishing.

He was born in Oldham, played rugby union for a fistful of clubs - Loughborough College, Broughton Park, Manchester, Sale - and then switched to rugby league, ending up at Whitehaven. He started coaching in 1982; within three years, he was a significant figure in the Great Britain back-room team. Even at that early stage, Larder understood the value of cross-fertilisation. Every footballing code - yes, even those stuck-up buggers in rugby union - had something to offer an ambitious, open-minded sporting strategist, and he soaked up knowledge by the sponge-full.

"Bright coaches have always looked at other sports," he said. "When I first started, I spent three weeks with Bob Paisley's Liverpool, just looking and learning. The Wallabies took a lot from the Australian Rules game, and when American Football caught on over here, the best coaches travelled across the Atlantic to see how they did things. The idea of specialist defensive coaching in rugby came from gridiron, where they had dedicated defensive teams. Those teams didn't sit around drinking coffee and watching the offensive players go through their drills; they worked at their skills, and worked bloody hard. That was the shaft of light for many of us."

In Larder's opinion, England defended just about as well as any union side has ever defended in the last two games of their World Cup campaign. "We made 97 per cent of our tackles in the final, which was the highest ever. We'll try to get better, but I'm not sure it will be possible. After every match, I make an award to the outstanding defensive player, but on that occasion I could not separate Martin Johnson from Neil Back, or Lawrence Dallaglio from Richard Hill and Will Greenwood. And the thing that struck me in the dressing-room was that these were the long-serving players, the people dismissed by the Australians as too old. It was an emotional moment. Very emotional, in fact.

"Afterwards, I was worried that the players would no longer be excited about defence. I was worried that I would not be excited by it. I just couldn't see how we could improve on what we'd achieved, and it left a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. But I went to the International Rugby Board conference in New Zealand and came away refreshed by my contact with other coaches. On the way home, I spent a week with the Sydney Roosters, probably the most physical defensive team in either code of rugby, and suddenly, there was a whole new set of ideas kicking in. I was back to my old self."

Perhaps the prospect of playing the All Blacks in a two-Test series this summer stimulated this latest surge of passion. Larder has endured his share of edgy moments in recent seasons, not least when England allowed Wales to get a start on them in a compelling World Cup quarter-final in Brisbane. "I was worried to death," he admitted, three months on. "Not because our defensive system was wrong, but because we were making daft mistakes. Usually I tweak things during the half-time break. On that occasion, it was more a case of an all-round, double-barrelled bollocking." But it is the New Zealanders who keep him awake at night.

In November 2002, Jonah Lomu and company put four tries past England at Twickenham - a feat they might have repeated in Wellington a few months later, but for a bad turn in the weather and some low-grade finishing. Larder has yet to come up with answers to the particular questions posed by these particular opponents, and he knows it. The June Tests in Dunedin and Auckland represent the biggest challenge of his career as a union coach - and yes, that includes the winning of the World Cup.

"If I'm honest, I started preparing for a final against New Zealand even before we played our semi against France," he said. "There is so much work to do, so much detail to nail down, that I always do my analysis on the Thursday or Friday of the previous week, depending on which day the players have off. I was convinced the All Blacks would beat Australia; I simply didn't envisage not playing them on World Cup final day. And had they got through, they would have frightened me. I would have had my heart in my mouth. Carlos Spencer? That back three of theirs, with Howlett and Rokocoko on the wings? They're some team, and if they continue to expand their game while bringing some directness and pragmatism to what they do, they will be a huge threat to us."

A bigger threat than Scotland, for sure. But as Larder is in no hurry to repeat the paint-stripper speech he felt compelled to deliver during the interval of that match with Wales, there is not the slightest suggestion that he has put the cart before the horse this time. The Scots have his undivided attention, unfortunately for them.