Plenty to ponder for Jones
london — If it had been suggested to Eddie Jones at the start of the Six Nations that only two players would occupy the same position in all five games, the Australian, with 23 wins from 24 games at that point, might have raised a quizzical eyebrow.
What his reaction would have been to the prospect of England’s title defence ending with them finishing fifth, on the back of their worst display since before any of the current squad were born, does not bear thinking about.
But those are the realities for England, who played the gracious host to Ireland’s grand slam party on Saturday as they lost 24-15 — their first home defeat under Jones and first at Twickenham in the Six Nations since 2012. changes were introduced by coach Eddie Jones for
Ireland match Jones had reacted to defeat by France in the previous round by making 10 changes, seven of them in personnel, to face Ireland. That meant that only prop Mako Vunipola and lock Maro Itoje started all five games in the same position.
Owen Farrell and Chris Robshaw were also in the five starting sides, but their changing positions underlined Jones’s struggle to seemingly nail down exactly what he wanted.
He ditched the Farrell-George Ford dual playmaker plan to little effect for the Ireland game with England actually looking their brightest in the final quarter when the pair were reunited after Ford came off the bench.
Robshaw, a man described by Jones in 2015 as a shirt number “six-and-a- half”, spent the first four games on the open-side flank before moving back to six on Saturday.
Admittedly, Jones had to do some pretty desperate back-row juggling in the face of a raft of injuries but the balance has never looked right and merely served to underline how much he depends on the injured Billy Vunipola’s ballcarrying skills. —