Alun Carter: Lack of ingenuity gives Johnson further worries

A total lack of brain and brawn characterised England's Test defeat against New Zealand. Much of the poor attacking play and lack of forward nous has to be born by the coaches. The All Blacks are rebuilding and have lost eight world-class players, four of these in the pack, but there was no significant gain by the English forwards in this area.

The English players once again tried hard, but fell short in both idea and technical expertise which will cause a few extra furrows in the brow of Martin Johnson. The difference in the clarity of thinking between the two teams was exemplified by two attacking five-metre scrummages.

The first to the All Blacks saw them run a variation on a play from the first Test – instead of attacking the 10 channel they ran a decoy down this channel with the scrum-half, Andrew Ellis, passing the ball wide and accurately to Dan Carter. A move that found Mike Tindall dumbfounded in defence, brought the home team their second try.

Three minutes later England had a scrum at the opposite end of the field in an identical position. There were no decoy runs, no slick passing movements just a dash for the line by Danny Care, the smallest player on the field, against an organised defensive line.

He was stopped and the forwards then took the direct route twice before being turned over. These plays reflected the differing approach of the two teams.

Three out of five All Black tries were scored within one phase of their own set piece, while one was scored from two phases. This demonstrates great execution of their strike plays from the set-piece, but also a lack of pressure from the opposition forwards.

England brought physicality to both Tests but a lack of ingenuity in attack, but the most worrying aspects from this tour are poor coaching and a lack of edge in the forward battle.

Alun Carter is Worcester's team manager. He was head of match analysis for Wales from 1998 to 2007 and technical assistant to Graham Henry on the 2001 Lions tour of Australia.