England vs Wales: Coach Gustard eyes the Biggar picture for host’s toughest test

Rear guarded: Paul Gustard believes his defensive system is working for England
(David Rogers/Getty Images)
Chris Jones8 March 2016

Paul Gustard’s new England defensive system faces one of the toughest tests world rugby can offer when Wales arrive at Twickenham on Saturday, the scene of their 28-25 World Cup triumph.

That win featured seven penalties from Dan Biggar in a 23- point haul that helped Wales ruin England’s home World Cup hopes.

As a result of that disaster, England brought in Eddie Jones as head coach and he convinced Gustard to leave Premiership champions Saracens and bring his defensive system to the international arena.

After three Six Nations matches, England have conceded just one try and are the only team able to win the Grand Slam.

Wales, who drew 16-16 with Ireland, are also unbeaten and victory at Twickenham would leave them only having to beat Italy at home to claim another championship title.

With Wales boasting a muscular pack and power runners in Jamie Roberts, George North, Alex Cuthbert and Jonathan Davies, Gustard’s defensive system is going to be stretched to the limit.

By the final whistle he will know if the England players have got up to speed as quickly as he hoped.

So, did Gustard ever fear his system, based on work rate, communication and organisation, would fail at test level?

England vs Ireland - player ratings

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“I do believe the system is pretty decent. I didn’t have an overriding concern that it wouldn’t work — my challenge was how I could get my message and personality across to the players in a short space of time and make it work instantly, as opposed to post-Six Nations.

“I had enough experience of eight years of coaching at Saracens to know the framework does work but now you are putting that on a different arena against better players. However, you have got arguably 33 of the best players in Europe in this England squad to work with.

“I am trying to assess and evaluate Wales as an attacking threat so I watch to see what they did in that World Cup game against an England. I can’t predict what they are going to do, but what I can try to do is make sure we have a good defensive system. Biggar is an 86 per cent goal kicker so we don’t want to give him opportunities.”

Flanker James Haskell and scrum-half Danny Care were shown yellow cards in the 21-10 win over Ireland and England played for 20 minutes of the second half with 14 men. Haskell, however, does not believe his tackle on Conor Murray was high and has called for Twickenham chiefs to restrict the amount of slow motion action replays that are shown on the big screens as he claimed the officials can be affected when the crowd reacts to the incident.

Haskell said: “I firmly believe the officials should go to the side of the field, look at a monitor, review it on their own, and take the crowd out of the equation.”

QBE Business Insurance is the proud sponsor of England Rugby. In partnership with the RFU, QBE recruited and trained 2,015 new Level 2 rugby coaches through the QBE Coaching Club. For more information go to QBEeurope.com

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