Ireland v England: Much more to Alex Goode than an elegant playmaker

Ian Smith remembers thinking that Alex Goode had got his positioning wrong.


The Arundel winger seemed to have a clear route to the corner when, from
nowhere, Goode flew in to take player, ball, corner flag and a few stray
spectators in one fell swoop.

“He had been in the right position all along,”
Smith chuckles.




That was when Goode was 17 and “Dosser” Smith, a former Leicester captain,
coach and long-term director of rugby at Oakham School, has rarely had cause
to doubt Goode since.

There are plenty of others to do that for him since
Mike Brown’s concussion ope…