Manu Tuilagi absence takes the bite out of England’s attack

Not for the first time this Six Nations, Eddie Jones was left lamenting a lack of ruthlessness from his side following a nail-biting victory against Wales. It is a word he has used often of late – clinical being another – but so far England have not been able to display enough of a cutting edge in attack to suggest they will finish top of the pile. They remain in the hunt for the title after keeping Wales’s second‑half fightback at bay but it seems clear that improvements must be made if England are to overcome Ireland and France in their final two matches.

In seeking solutions the obvious answer is Manu Tuilagi. It cannot have helped that he was such a late withdrawal because Jones’s attacking gameplan would have had to be drastically redrawn but the wider point is how England struggle without him. Jones is eager to play down his absence – pointing to how England have had to cope for long spells of his tenure without the Sale centre – but that does not tell the whole story because one of the most successful aspects of the 2019 World Cup campaign was how the backroom staff worked wonders to keep Tuilagi in prime condition throughout.

“If you’ve got someone like Manu you can create opportunities in other ways, if you haven’t got Manu you’ve got to find other ways,” said Jones. “This obsession with gameplans and plan A and plan B and who you’ve got and haven’t got… we look at the game. The defence creates opportunities. We believe we’ve got an organisation in our attack that allows us to take opportunities of those chances the defence may give us.”

The fact is, however, that those opportunities are rarely being created, rarer still, finished, and with Tuilagi not out of contention to face Ireland his shadow continues to