England’s stunning victory in Dublin last weekend was a sharp reminder that, while rugby union has many highly important technical and tactical elements, it is at its heart a collision sport and pure physicality wins matches. Sometimes you have just got to get out there and physically impose yourself upon the opposition, you have to be relentless in constantly coming off the defensive line, double-teaming at tackles, smashing mauls and contact areas, counterrucking hard and flying through at the opposition scrum half at rucks. England did all that against Ireland. They did some excellent work on top of that too, but it was the physicality that unsettled their hosts. It is how Ireland usually unsettle teams — it was how they beat New Zealand last autumn —…

Source: The Times February 08, 2019 12:00 UTC