"Oouuufff," went James Ryan as Maro Itoje compressed the Ireland captain's lungs with a frightening flip into the dirt.
That was tackle number 200. Or thereabouts. These English giants had another 30 belts lined up for the bravest Irish men before the punishment, mercifully, ended.
The defensive masterclass at Twickenham did not win this match for Eddie Jones’s side. It stopped Ireland from getting any sort of foothold, as brothers Billy and Mako Vunipola, and the “Kamikaze boys” at flanker, hunted in pairs to torture predictable, lone ball carriers.
“John [Mitchell] has really pushed them forward,” said Jones of the former All Blacks head coach. “The thing I like about John is he works in collaboration with the players, so it is not a defensive zone by the coaches, it is a defensive zone by the coach and the players.
“Most of our defence meetings are led by our players, almost 100 per cent, so they own it and you can see how much enjoyment they get out of it. It is such a significant part of the game.”
Relentless
The gang tackling, while relentless, did not win this match for Jones’s side.
“I think it is important to remember we are not playing against any mugs,” said Itoje afterwards, polite as ever. “Ireland are a serious team and a well coached team and they have some really good players. They were never ever going to roll over.
“But, you know, we want to be more relentless. We want to be more clinical. We want to take larger control of the game. For us, that is our next step.”
The gap is only going to get wider and not because of England’s ruthless ability to shut Ireland down behind the gainline.
Itoje is being kind. Coaching is the true difference between England and Ireland at the moment. Size and talent clearly matter, but Jonny May’s wonder try did not originate from Ronán Kelleher’s failure to find a leaping Peter O’Mahony at the 21st minute attacking lineout.
Jones is England’s “flick the switch” coach. The 60-year-old Australian concocts scenarios so everyone knows how to score in transition (methods that come straight from the NBA). But it goes further back than training in leafy Teddington. For true knowledge, we must travel north to Merseyside and Liverpool FC’s director of research Ian Graham.
“We’ve divided the coaching team up into three areas: attack, defence and ‘flick the switch’,” Jones explained. “I’m nominally the flick the switch co-ordinator but all the other coaches do all the work. We have created games that mimic those situations.
“I think I mentioned we had a great meeting with the Liverpool analysis and that’s one area we are starting to develop our own database and starting to use some tracking from a company called Sport Ability that is helping us in that area, to measure work off the ball, which is so important in the transitional part of the game.
Leg race
“So, it is a pretty exciting area for us. You saw that try today where we shifted the ball quickly to the outside and then it was a leg race. There are not too many people in the world who can beat Jonny May in a leg race.”
Liverpool and England in collaboration is new information that Jones was happy to share.
“Football sides are so advanced in being able to manage the players off the ball. If you look at any stats you get – like Opta stats – they are only concerned with information on the ball. As we know, Mako Vunipola today, he might of made 20 tackles and probably carried the ball three times, so for 79 minutes and 45 seconds he was not with the ball, but his movement off the ball is crucial to what we do when we are in transition.
“So, we are starting to get some measurement on that. We are like, what’s underneath kindergarten? We are in the nursery school now, whereas Liverpool are doing their PhD at Oxford University. We got a fair way to go, mate.”
Instantly, we conjure an image of Jones and Jürgen Klopp chewing the fat.
“No, I haven’t spoken to Jürgen. He is a bit hard to get to, mate, he doesn’t speak to a lowly rugby coach like me. It was a guy called Ian Graham [Liverpool’s director of research].
“I’ve been reading to keep busy in the bubble, [Believe Us by Melissa Reddy], which is the story of Liverpool, about how they are using data and analytics to improve their game.”
Call it Moneyball, call it the age of analytics, but England’s evolving attack under Sevens specialist Simon Amor and skills coach Jason Ryles (their most recent recruit from NRL champions Melbourne Storm), happened before our eyes on Saturday when they flicked the switch: Itoje gathered Kelleher’s overthrow and fed Ollie Lawrence and Henry Slade, as neither centre hesitated when shovelling the ball to May, who evaded Chris Farrell, before galloping away from Bundee Aki and Keith Earls. Faced with Hugo Keenan the winger knew to chip in field where oceans of grass ignited the leg race.
“Jonny is an incredible rugby player. I have seen that boy since the time I’ve been lucky enough to coach him. He is outstanding. I’ve never seen a more professional player. He continues to get better, he gets faster, he gets more elusive and really his work off the ball is exceptional.”
May is chasing Rory Underwood’s 49 try England record. Saturday’s brace brings him to 31.
“I don’t see why not. He is only going to get better and better. I think he will be at his best at 32, 33. He is 30 now. I don’t see why he can’t keep scoring tries.”
This is the enormous challenge facing Andy Farrell, Mike Catt, John Fogarty, Simon Easterby, Richie Murphy and Vinnie Hammond (who has previously linked up with Manchester United's analytics department); as England chase the ghosts of greatness, Ireland fumble around in the dark for methods to fix a broken lineout.
Ireland players are no mugs but the group lacks the coaching expertise to compete with England’s backroom.
“We got three great analysts that look at that area and they are giving the players feedback on their effort in that area,” Jones added. “They are the best players in England and we want them to use their skills.”
