Coach opts for the measured play of experienced No 10 rather than the risk-takers Fin or Marcus Smith
The brigadier has been a Twickenham fixture for as long anyone can remember. He has a regular spot in the seats behind the press box. He has one of those voices that makes you duck your head every time he shouts out, it carries clean across the ground and sounds as if he is drowning in gravel.
After 25 years of coming here I have no idea if he is a brigadier, mind, or has a rank, or whether it is even the same person in every Test or just any one of a number of interchangeable Twickenham men from the home counties. On Saturday he began by shouting: “Bloody hit him” as Immanuel Feyi-Waboso went haring downfield after George’s Ford’s first kick from hand. This was followed with a full-throated “Yes” when Feyi-Waboso clattered into whichever Australian it was who caught it.
The brigadier isn’t a complicated sort. He doesn’t need the Rugby Football Union to employ a DJ to spin Hey Baby on the decks in a live set at half-time or a rackety brass band to parp out Sweet Caroline whenever the clock stops during the match. He just wants to see England score some tries and smash some people; if they can bully the scrums and bash out a couple of rolling mauls so much the better.
