WATSON HOLDS KEY FOR EDDIE. . .
I’ m sure, like me, you will have noticed the broad smile on Eddie Jones’s face on Saturday night down at the Rec when Anthony Watson cut through the Toulon defence for the first of his two Bath tries.
His second, on the stroke of half-time, was arguably even better when he took his time before burning past the Toulon defence on the outside for a wonderfully taken try.
Watson really excites me and has done since the 2014 tour of New Zealand when I saw some touches in a midweek game against Canterbury Crusaders that clearly belonged in Test rugby. Since then his learning curve has been steep.
Although they are of a different shape and size, he reminds me of Jason Robinson. He has the footwork as well as the pace. He often takes his time assessing the defence — and where the weakness is — before he hits the accelerator.
Rather like Owen Farrell, Watson has now cemented his place in the England team and the only question is in which position. Like Jason, he can genuinely play wing and full back; he excels at both and that’s an enviable asset for Eddie to have.
I suspect that, ultimately, 15 will be his best position — because in the modern game that is where he will get most involved. And you want your best players on the ball as much as possible.
Full backs hoover up a lot of opposition kicks whether as the receiver or, better still, as the recipient of passes from the wings after they have gathered or caught the kick.
The full back often has that fraction of a second more to make up his mind what to do, which suits Watson nicely. And if you have a brilliant counter-attacker such as Watson at 15 the opposition may have to seriously modify their kicking game, which could upset their plans.
At the very least they will have to kick incredibly well not to be hurt by his ability to run the ball back dangerously.
But should England make the switch right now? That’s difficult.
mike Brown at his very best still brings a lot to the party in terms of ability under the high ball, tackling and strong running. And there have been hints recently that he is looking to offload the ball a bit more.
So, my take is that if Eddie considers Brown to still be at the top of his game, he stays at 15 for the present, with Watson and Elliot Daly on the wings.
If, however, he feels that Brown is not quite giving England what he is looking for, it should be Watson at 15 with Jonny may and Daly on the wings. The line- up, in fact, which started against Australia last month.
There is enough pace and footballing ability in that trio to damage any team in the world. Premiership clubs have found it really tough against the Irish sides over the last two weeks in Europe. For me, this only underlines that England’s match at home against the Irish in march is just as big as the one against the All Blacks later in the year. In particular, there was much to admire from Leinster against Exeter, who played very well at the Aviva and still came up short. Leinster, like everybody, have a few injuries but suffered further disruption when Johnny Sexton went off with another head knock early on. And then came two yellow cards, to Cian Healy, who was probably lucky not to get a red, and Scott Fardy. It was a big game that could easily have spun out of control but Leinster stayed calm and took control in the second half. Irish rugby teams seem to have so much nous and experience these days and seem to instinctively do the right thing. It was very impressive and come the Six Nations I’m expecting a massive campaign from Joe Schmidt’ s Ireland.