A rest may not be best for England

EDDIE JONES looked pretty pleased with life as England got out of the path of Japan’s super typhoon and headed for a weekend at the seaside.

Not so fast, Eddie (pictured above).

Having the France game cancelled does mean England win Pool C and get a fortnight to get fresh for a quarterfinal against opponents with half the preparation time.

But I think England needed another game.

They had the perfect match schedule coming in, with the degree of difficulty increasing week on week.

But Tomas Lavanini was sent off after 18 minutes for Argentina and that changed everything.

All of a sudden what promised to be a real step up on the Tonga and USA games became a formality. Argentina, reduced to 14 men, all but disappeared.

To then lose ‘Le Crunch’ to Typhoon Hagibis today was to remove a second stepping stone and leave England needing to jump from pummelling 14-man Argentina to a World Cup quarter-final against, almost certainly, Australia.

That is a giant leap. The intensity in World Cup knockout games goes through the roof and in this England squad all but four players have never experienced it.

Ben Youngs, Manu Tuilagi, Dan Cole and Courtney Lawes played in the 2011 quarter-final against France. England lost. This lack of knockout rugby experience is a massive factor for me.

Four years ago, in what amounted to a sudden-death encounter, many of them got torn to pieces by pool opponents Australia.

Which is not to say England can’t win. At their best they are a way better side than the Wallabies.

But the point needs to be made Team Jones last faced a severe test in February when they lost in Wales.

And with four years of hard work coming down to one game, we don’t absolutely know whether England have it in them or not.