Alex was high class under the high ball

BRENDAN GALLAGHER

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SO, almost unbelievably, it’s farewell to Alex Goode, one of the three or four best full-backs I’ve ever seen anywhere, even if England in their wisdom chose to grant “only” 21 caps to the Saracens man.

Every rugby player will have their hard luck story but to these eyes Goode was scandalously hard done by, almost to the point of national embarrassment. Questions should have been asked in the House.

His international career effectively ended on March 21, 2015, when he dropped a steepling high ball right under his posts on a filthy windy afternoon in Dublin when England were getting beaten 19-9, the scoreline flattering them. In fact he scarcely touched the ball but frankly let he who is without sin cast the first stone. There isn’t a full-back in history who hasn’t been there.

It didn’t matter that the England pack had got taken to the cleaners and that, very much on the back foot, they had conceded 14 penalties of which Johnny Sexton slotted four, it was Goode’s misadventure under the high ball that was seized upon as the embodiment of England’s lack lustre incompetence that day. And that had big consequences.

He was never fully trusted again. The glories of 2012, when he was their best player in the autumn series and the 2013 Six Nations, when he was equally as good, were quickly forgotten. He only played a couple more Tests, bowing out in the meaningless, dead rubber of a World Cup pool game against Uruguay the following year. Which was an immense shame for England, it set them back years. Think of the tries that went missing as England wantonly denied themselves his creativity and skill.