Someone should have told Marcus Smith to dial down the ‘I’m a superstar’ schtick for the latest Netflix series of the Six Nations documentary Full Contact, because in the cold light of Sunday morning it looked even more excruciating.
The second series opens with Smith driving off a brand new £130,000 Jeep G-wagon and proceeds to his meeting with American marketeers Roc Nation, who suggest that Rihanna has taken a personal interest in him because he’s going to be a global star.
He has ‘the best hair in world rugby’, applies wax to it because it’s raining, and tells us that rugby needs ‘guys who’ve got millions of followers.’ He drinks the Argentinian herbal tea, mate. ‘If it works for Messi, it’ll do for me,’ he says. Didn’t anyone think to tell him about hubris?
The contrast with Ireland’s Peter O’Mahony, examining the pruning shears in his garden shed for the opening Full Contact episode and gruffly relating that, ‘above all you have to perform’, could barely be more striking.
Briefly, on Saturday night, Smith lived up to his own vision of himself, accelerating off into Ireland 22 with that characteristic accelerating skip of his.
He was the one with a vision of the possibilities, quickening the pulse in the glorious period before Ireland began squeezing the life out of England. His was the ball, swung to his left, which saw Henry Slade’s deft left-footed grubber sit up perfectly for Cadan Murley to score a debut try.
Marcus Smith briefly lived up to his own version of himself during England’s loss to Ireland
But he may come to be judged as another bright, unfulfilled hope in a decent generation
A second half of shocking indiscipline saw England surrender control of the showdown
‘What the hell happened at half-time?’ was the question my Mail Sport colleague Sir Clive Woodward posed in the aftermath of a scoreline which flattered England. But it was what happened on the pitch, after a string of English substitutions which were no less than a disaster, that broke England badly and took them down.
Borthwick’s observations in the press conference theatre afterwards were blandly meaningless. But a second half of shocking indiscipline and surrendered control, in which Ireland changed tack to a kicking game and ticked up 22 consecutive points, got to something rotten at the heart of England.
Here is a setup lacking a coach capable of improving things, lacking an established system of play and lacking a credible governing body to oversee what, by rugby standards, is the small fortune being thrown at it.
The cohesion for Ireland that came of having 11 of the Dublin-based provincial side Leinster in the starting XV did, or course, create a natural advantage. But that was no excuse for their opponents’ scrambled logic.
England abandoned defensive size for speed and embraced an energy-sapping method which entailed a huge number of tackles, yet went into the match without a conditioning coach. The new one, replacing the previous one who has walked out on Borthwick and joined Ireland, will not start work until the summer tour of Argentina.
Borthwick experimented with his third system and third captain – none ever seems to bear much resemblance to the previous one – yet named a bench in possession of a mere 81 caps between them.
We are told that Borthwick’s attempts to educate himself has included at least one conversation with Gareth Southgate, who would presumably have told him that the fundamental reason why England became serious tournament performers was because the FA had established a style of association football which England, from age groups to seniors, would adhere to.
Borthwick lurches from plan to plan, possessed of no such system.
Steve Borthwick lurches from plan to plan and experimented with his third system
The general malaise is rendered more tragic by the fact that England do possess talent
The RFU can ill afford the cost of sacking the deeply unconvincing Borthwick
The governing body which employs him cannot even organise itself competently, let alone help formulate one. RFU chief executive Bill Sweeney, who refuses to apologise for accepting a £358,000 bonus amid record losses and redundancies, distanced himself two weeks ago from Borthwick’s appointment and would not even say who’d held sway over the hire. That, Sweeney said, must remain anonymous.
Having shelled out £1million to Leicester to release Borthwick and his coaching team to them – details Sweeney has conveniently forgotten in public discussions – the RFU can ill afford the cost of sacking this deeply unconvincing incumbent if they wanted to. The target Borthwick has been set – four wins out of five in this Six Nations – is meaningless.
The general malaise is rendered more tragic by the fact that England do possess talent. Smith looks like a top-class Test 10 at times. On Saturday, Ollie Lawrence and Henry Slade carried the torch. The manner of the defeat should take nothing away from the way that Itoje led.
Borthwick got his excuses in early, declaring that ‘it’s two different teams – an Ireland team and an England team thrown together in the past six months.’
Shaping the unsatisfactory narrative that, more than two years after arriving, he’s still just starting out. You worry for what a second-half evisceration in Dublin will do for England, if they’re asked to deliver the same kind of total rugby at Twickenham next weekend against France.
The American Roc Nation marketeer, Michael Yormark, says of Smith in the opening Netflix episode that he is ‘the complete package’ and ‘if he continues to do what he’s doing, he will be a superstar’.
Smith runs his hand through his hair and flashes his eyes, in that way he does. But he will turn 26 next week and if England continue doing what they’re doing then history will come to judge him as another bright, unfulfilled hope in a generation of decent England players. He drove a fast car but never touched the heights.
