White Gold

by Peter Burns

  The Australian pack secured the ball from a scrappy scrum. David Lyons had recovered well as his tight-five were being marched backwards and he was able to set up a ruck on the right flank. Gregan quickly swept the ball away to his left where Larkham was standing deep. The fly-half turned his body and sent an inch-perfect cross-field kick to the left-hand corner. The ball hung delightfully in the air, allowing Lote Tuqiri on the left wing plenty of time to race up and arrive just as it was making its descent towards the scuttling figure of Jason Robinson as he raced to cover the kick.

  Tuqiri was a good six inches taller than Robinson and had been on fine form in the tournament. He rose like an Aussie Rules footballer, easily clearing Robinson’s leap, collected cleanly and dived over for a beautifully executed score.

  ‘It was a great kick and it worked perfectly,’ admitted Robinson. ‘I’m just surprised that they didn’t do more of it. The night was wet and horrible and those kinds of kicks are always 50–50 – in fact more than that for the attacker as they are going forward and have the momentum to take them over the line if they have the ball – and he had a big height advantage on me. But from our point of view there was no panic, we just thought, Right, let’s get back into doing what we do. Let’s focus and play to our patterns. And that’s how we went about it.’

  From the touchline, Elton Flatley struck the upright with his conversion attempt.

  ‘In most of our World Cup matches, we went behind early and when Tuqiri scored, it was a case of, Well, here we go again,’ said Dallaglio. ‘There was no panic.’

  Just as they had done against Samoa, Wales and France, England held their nerve despite the early setback. They pressed and they probed and they muscled their way into the Australian red zone, forcing them to concede penalties. Just a few minutes after the try had been scored, David Lyons went off his feet at a ruck and Wilkinson put England’s first points on the board with the resultant penalty.

  After seeing the accuracy of Larkham’s kick to Tuqiri, the English back-row made it their mission to do everything they could to disrupt the Wallaby fly-half. They hit him hard, they hit him late, they tugged his jersey, they got up in his face time and time again. They were like a pack of dogs, intent on doing everything they could to unsettle him, to put him off his rhythm. And it worked. The tactic of the cross-field kick wasn’t repeated and then, just a few minutes after a crunching hit from Richard Hill, Larkham rushed out of the defensive line and took Ben Cohen out without the ball. In so doing, he both conceded a penalty and gashed open his lip, which required him to leave the field for treatment. As Wilkinson kicked the penalty, Larkham’s blood replacement, Matt Giteau, joined the fold, and England were in the lead.

  Over the next ten minutes, England made two sixty-metre incursions into the Wallaby half from broken play. The first was from a kick downfield after Wilkinson had forced a turnover from Giteau with a crunching tackle, which was only just rescued by Tuqiri; the second saw Richard Hill hack the ball downfield and chase brilliantly to put pressure on the covering Giteau, who knocked the ball on as he dived to secure it. Quick as a flash, Hill was over the ball, followed immediately by Steve Thompson and Neil Back, who slung the ball right to Josh Lewsey. The full-back sensed the space and saw that he, Matt Dawson and Ben Kay had a three-on-two overlap against the scrambling Australian defence. Lewsey drew Gregan and flicked the ball on to Dawson, who stood up Waugh and then popped the ball to Kay, who was arcing round towards the corner flag. There was all of a yard or two to go and Kay simply had to catch and dive for the score. But in the excitement of the moment, the blood rushed to Kay’s head and he fumbled the ball forward, losing control. It was a terrible error.

  ‘His are normally the safest of hands and I couldn’t believe my eyes,’ said Martin Johnson. ‘A definite try, gone begging. He’d probably made the fatal mistake: thinking about it.’

  ‘It was just one of those things,’ said Richard Hill. ‘Ninety-nine times out of a hundred he would have caught it and scored.’

  ‘Ask Ben Kay about dropping the ball in the World Cup final,’ said Will Greenwood. ‘Even ten years later he says there is not a day goes by that he doesn’t think about it.’

  From the resultant scrum Australia cleared their lines, but England were still very much in the ascendancy. In the twenty-eighth minute, Wilkinson stroked over his third penalty to make it 9–5 and just ten minutes later he was involved again as England went for the jugular.

  George Gregan was lifted and thumped into touch by Mike Tindall and from the line-out England spun the ball into midfield, where Will Greenwood carried it strongly up the middle of the park. Greenwood hit the contact high and pumped his legs, carrying three defenders with him until they forced him to the deck. Running from right to left, Lawrence Dallaglio swept around the shadow of the ruck and took a pop ball from Dawson. The Wallaby defenders to the right of the ruck hadn’t seen Dallaglio coming and the No.8 surged through the gap and into open space. He was running around Mortlock and, just as the centre was about to haul him down from one side and Wendell Sailor was about to crash into him from the other, Wilkinson ran a switch line from left to right and Dallaglio flicked the ball inside to him. Wilkinson took it on, gave a shuffle of movement to fix full-back Mat Rogers and then spun the ball back out to the left where Jason Robinson was searing up outside him. Just as he had done in the opening minutes of the First Test for the Lions in 2001, Robinson tore down the left-hand touchline without a finger being laid on him. He dived in at the corner as Rogers desperately lunged for him, then leapt to his feet, punched the ball away and roared, ‘Come on!’ to the delighted English fans in the crowd.

  It was a spectacularly executed try.

  Wilkinson missed with the conversion but England were more than deserving of their 14–5 half-time lead.

  In a calm changing room, the team talked through a few technical points; line-outs, scrummage and how to adjust our game plan for the slight breeze they’d now face.

  Johnson looked around his team and could feel the energy surging through them. They had played well in the first forty minutes. The early try had been a setback, nothing more, and they had responded magnificently. They were all over the Aussies. They had spurned at least one golden try-scoring opportunity but they hadn’t let their heads drop. Instead, they had created another opportunity and they had taken it.

  ‘We keep them moving,’ he said. ‘I want the intensity lifted another level or two now. We fucking bury them out there.’

  England started the second half strongly, the forwards rumbling powerfully, Mike Tindall punching holes in the midfield, Wilkinson thundering long touch-finders deep into Australian territory. Ben Cohen seemed to have busted his way through for another score, but play was brought back as the officials deemed an obstruction by Richard Hill had illegally opened the gap for the big winger.

  But the Wallabies were displaying the national characteristic that Woodward had first come to understand back in his playing days with Manly – Australian sportspeople do not give up. The Wallabies clung on with every fibre of their beings and slowly began to crawl their way back into the game.

  The wind was behind them now and there could be no denying the class and experience of the half-back pairing of Larkham and Gregan (the latter would go on to become the most capped player in history), and the clever footballing skills of Flatley. These three expertly returned the ball into England’s half and the gold defensive wall pressed hard.

  England conceded a penalty that Flatley gratefully nudged over to make the score 14–8.

  The downpour grew heavier and both sides began to make an increasing number of handling mistakes. At the line-out, both hookers were struggling with the slippery ball and there were several overthrows that completely missed their targets. The net result of all these errors was scrums. England should have been delighted, but it was Australia who had won the referee’s ear and they were surviving as Andre Watson saw several misdemeanours by the England front-row for which
he awarded penalties.

  Their frustration was evident – and was no doubt the reason Phil Vickery, in an effort to atone for his scrum penalties and to try to put his side back into the ascendancy, handled the ball on the ground at a ruck. The shrill sound of Watson’s whistle broke the air and his arm swung up on the Wallaby side. Flatley was coolness personified as he knocked over the kick to make it 14–11.

  England had a mass of possession and were playing a strong, controlled game, but the scrum penalties were killing them. With the rain pouring down and both sides absolutely fanatical in defence, there were dropped balls and knock-ons aplenty. England’s pack were without doubt the superior scrummaging unit, but they were penalised time and time again for scrum infringements.

  ‘We were the stronger, more physical side but every time we got pressure on them it was the same old story,’ said Johnson. ‘A dropped ball, a needless penalty, allowing them to claw back six precious points. Jonny tried a couple of snap drop-goals but they slid wide to raucous Australian booing and we stayed scoreless in the half as the minutes ticked away.’

  ‘The ball was pretty greasy but we were playing with width and moving it about,’ said Richard Hill. ‘Perhaps we overdid it and didn’t look after the ball enough. For whatever reason, we just couldn’t get our game going again after the break. We were also getting penalised in the scrums, which was difficult to understand. We clearly had the stronger scrum but the Aussies worked it well and managed to get the ref on their side.’

  Astonishingly, for all their dominance, England didn’t score a point in the second half. But as the clock ticked down towards the 80th minute, they were still three points clear. All they had to do was hold on and they would do it. They would win the World Cup.

  The ball died in play on England’s 10-metre line, some fifteen yards in from the touchline. Andre Watson, correctly, awarded a scrum to Australia, who had been in possession. It was the seventy-eighth minute of the game. England needed to see out the scrum, defend for their lives, keep their discipline and Australia would run out of time.

  The packs engaged and England surged forward; Baxter collapsed under the pressure. The ball had appeared out the back of the scrum and George Smith had comfortably controlled it, but Watson wasn’t happy. He blew his whistle and demanded that the scrum was reset and replayed. Martin Johnson was incensed. ‘You’ve got to ping three!’ he shouted. ‘He’s on the ground every fucking time!’

  Watson did not appreciate being told how to call the infringement. ‘I’ll ping what I see. Don’t test me.’

  Watson walked down the line between the two front-rows, then turned and called ‘Engage’. The packs collided but Woodman hadn’t been ready.

  ‘I just missed the engagement and Baxter came in underneath me and I couldn’t engage,’ he explained. ‘Often the ref will just reset it but this time he gave them the penalty.’

  Seventy-nine minutes on the clock. It was do-or-die time for the Wallabies. Gregan pointed to the posts and Flatley walked to the spot to await his kicking tee. If Flatley missed the World Cup was England’s. But if he kicked it the game would go into extra-time – and all bets were off.

  Practice, as we have discussed, makes perfect and players develop skills to such an extent that they no longer think about their execution. This is called expert induced amnesia. But when they are faced with a huge pressure situation they can, as has also been examined, choke. As Matthew Syed explains in Bounce, ‘Choking happens when a sportsman gets so anxious that he seizes conscious control over a skill that ought to be delivered subconsciously. Suddenly, he is at the mercy of the conscious system. The highly sophisticated skills encoded in the subconscious part of his brain, built up over years of practice, count for nothing. He is striving for victory using neural pathways he last used as a novice.’

  Woodward’s greatest fear had been that his players might choke at the summit. Looking at Flatley, he hoped that this would be the moment the Australian would bottle it, would get the yips and slice the kick wide under that welter of pressure.

  Flatley threw his scrum-cap to one side and placed the ball on the tee. He rose, checked his alignment and then took three steps backwards and one to the side. He hunched his shoulders forward and jutted out his strong, square chin, setting his eyes on the posts in front of him and the sea of gold and white shirts behind. He took a deep breath and began his run-up. And in that moment he displayed just what an iron will he had as he landed a perfect penalty and threw his team a lifeline.

  ‘The key was that as soon as he slotted the kick over, the guys didn’t dwell on anything,’ said Johnson. ‘We didn’t talk about what could have been or that we had just let the World Cup slip through our fingers.’

  ‘We just thought, what do we have to do in the next twenty minutes to win this game?’ said Mike Catt, who had replaced Mike Tindall with just four minutes of normal time left on the clock. ‘That was the great thing about it.’

  The players gathered in a circle on the field, took on fluids and spent a few moments gathering their thoughts. Woodward appeared from the stands and headed over to meet them. He was about to address the group when Johnson pulled him to one side. ‘We’ve got this, Clive,’ he said. ‘Leave it to us.’

  It was player empowerment as he had always hoped – but it was also a moment of agony for Woodward. After all his years of hard work and dedication, he wanted to be there to help steer the team through to the end. But he knew that Johnson was right. It was the players who would win the game, not him. It was all on their shoulders now. He nodded. And then a thought occurred to him. ‘I want to speak to Jonny,’ he said.

  ‘That’s fine. Thanks, Clive,’ said Johnson and then he turned back to his men.

  Woodward approached Wilkinson. ‘Don’t pass the ball,’ he said. ‘Just smash it down into their half, behind their wingers, and make them play from there. We need to play territory – nothing in our half at all. Keep them pinned back. This isn’t going to be won by tries.’

  Wilkinson was nodding vaguely, his eyes on the posts in the distance. ‘I need to go and do some kicking,’ he said.

  Woodward realised that his fly-half hadn’t listened to a word he had said, so as Wilkinson disappeared off to practise his goal-kicking, he tracked down Mike Catt and relayed the message to him instead.

  ‘Got you,’ said Catt with a smile, as cool as ever. ‘That’s what I’m here for.’

  ‘Johnno got the tone just right at that point,’ recalled Richard Hill. ‘There were around 83,000 fans in that stadium, all in a state of hyper-excitement, yet that huddle was one of the coolest and calmest environments I’ve ever experienced during a match. “We know what we have to do and we don’t have to change much to win this,” he told us. It was just a matter of tightening up and concentrating on what we did well. Johnno knew we were going to win, you could just feel it.’

  With Catt now on the field, Woodward made another substitution that would prove crucial. He took off Phil Vickery and replaced him with Jason Leonard. ‘I wasn’t told to defuse the situation when I went on, or not to scrummage, but just to make sure I didn’t give away any more penalties,’ said Leonard. ‘I jogged on and just ran past the ref and said, “Look, you know what I’m like, and you know how I scrummage. I won’t go up and I won’t go down. I might go backwards and forwards, but you won’t have any bother with me, all right?” And he said, “That’s all I’m asking, thanks Jason.”’ That was 114 caps of experience talking and Watson appreciated the effort. Tellingly, England weren’t penalised again at the scrum throughout the remainder of the game.

  ‘Bringing Jason Leonard on was massive,’ recalled Woodward. ‘He was disappointed because he felt he should have started the match, but his impact off the bench can never be overstated. We could have done things differently, we could have made a raft of changes – as a lot of coaches would do – but there’s every chance that if we had done that, we might not have held our composure. I think it’s ridiculous nowadays that ev
eryone in the squad gets on the pitch – and with pre-planned substitutions being made on the hour mark. I never worked like that; I always used my eyes and made judgement calls depending on how the game was going. Take Matt Dawson and Kieran Bracken, for example. Kieran didn’t get on the pitch in the final. I looked at Matt and I could see he was fine, so there was no way I was taking him off. I had people saying to me, “Get fresh legs on,” but Dawson was my number one scrum-half – primarily because of his brain – and he was settled and playing well and he was fit enough to last the distance. The way I saw it, this was the biggest pressure moment of all our lives, why would I take off Dawson when I knew he was going well and I knew he had the experience to handle the pressure?’

  The game restarted and within two minutes England were awarded a penalty. Wilkinson, who had not enjoyed anywhere near his usual standard of accuracy with his kicking, showed just how important those few minutes of extra practice had been by slotting a monstrous effort from fifty metres out, taking the score to 17–14. It was a magnificent strike.

  England played with tremendous ambition in Australia’s half, with Mike Catt coming to the fore. One short ball off Wilkinson saw him bust a hole right through the Wallaby midfield before slipping a delicate offload to Dallaglio.

  Minutes later he did the same off a short pop from Dawson and England swept forward through the phases. They worked their way down to the 22 and Catt attempted a drop-goal but was charged down by Justin Harrison. As the ball fell loose, Phil Waugh dived to secure it but knocked it on.

  England set the scrum, Leonard shoring up the right-hand side. The ball came wide and Catt took it up again; Dawson slung the ball back to Wilkinson who went for a drop-goal... but it slid wide.

  The Wallabies recovered the ball and looked to settle the frantic pace. From the drop-out they launched the ball back into England’s half and the danger was averted. The ball eventually died in play and the first period of extra-time came to an end.