Ford has a point about the old fashioned style - in the main they have old fashioned players.
The strength of England rugby is not the same as the strength of the SH teams. They are not brought up to play the same kind of rugby as the SH teams are. The Bok boys are a bit different as they have a tradition of 10 man rugby with forward power, but they are changing too.
For 2 or 3 months of the England season their weather and ground conditions are poor and sometimes execrable. There is no dividend for England players in playing an up tempo game of the like we saw in Hong Kong in such conditions. Thus they are schooled from a young age in playing a more conservative game.
As rugby changed, and especially in the professional era, England did well enough and the drift away from the laws as they were written served their ability to slow the game down. Also, more than anyone else, they successfully borrowed from league defensive systems first popularised by the Australians in the 1999 RWC through Muggleton - and not to the point, for a few years they had some of the greatest players of the professional era.
After the 2003 RWC and the great players retired their ranking gradually fell and they assumed a level more or less equal over the years to France, Ireland and Wales. They can still beat any international team on their day, including Australia recently, (and always will), but their type of game is still conservative.
Jonno has introduced players into his team who are different from his old team mates. He has seen the signs in the SH visits to the NH in recent years and the consequences on the crackdown on laws recently and is trying to use players who are more suitable to the current game.
15 Foden and 14 Ashton would fit into the Wallabies team no problemo and Flood would serve as a reserve to the unique QC (Quade Cooper), or Giteau, as well as Barnes could. 11. Cueto, could play any kind of game asked of him and 9. Youngs may prove even before the RWC that he is world class, and he would slot right in also.
Their problem behind the pack for the current high tempo game of the lack crackdown is the midfield. There is not a Guscott, a player born in the wrong hemisphere, nor a Greenwood, a man for all seasons and all places, in the country. As for their pack: it is getting more athletic in some positions and less cumbersome. Even old dog, 2. Thompson, is playing like a pup.
Although the team is slowly evolving away from old-fashioned players they have a regular diet of old-fashioned rugby. Some of their teams like London Irish and Northampton will have a crack but by and large the games are slower and even the new style players will have problems with a diet of 3 fast games in a row.
If the weather is wet though, different story. Kiwis have a couple of months of bad weather each year and know the ropes. The Boks, though depleted, know how to play it in the forwards. But watch out Oz if it's wet at HQ.
But I digress. Fords remarks are silly; not because they are wrong for his team, but that he made them at all.
