ENGLAND CLUELESS AND BROKEN
Jones under threat if his hapless players can’t halt dismal slide
NOT SO long ago, England’s showdown with New Zealand at Twickenham on November 10 was being billed as a World Cup final dress rehearsal — now it looms as the day when the host nation may be dragged into emergency regime change.
What should have been a northsouth battle for global supremacy is in danger of becoming an English fight for survival instead. That is when the crisis gripping the England set-up at present must have been addressed and resolved, or deemed terminal and worthy of drastic action. Deadline day.
At this stage, Eddie Jones’s role as national coach does not appear to be under threat and it should not be under threat. Yet.
Rewind four months and England were thundering ahead with another Six Nations title in their sights, before the wheels came off in spectacular fashion.
Such has been the roll call of successes and records under the Australian, it would be fair to allow some leeway and breathing space in this fraught period.
But the RFU cannot and will not allow the losing streak to stretch on indefinitely. Five Test defeats in a row, plus an unseemly, nine-try thumping by the Barbarians, suggest profound problems are not being overcome.
Another loss to the Springboks in Cape Town in five days’ time appears all but inevitable, especially now that it is clear that England will be without the influential Vunipola brothers. That would complete a series whitewash and take the losing run to seven games.
The next fixtures are back in south-west London, in an autumn campaign beginning with a return clash against South Africa, followed by the visit of New Zealand. When England were on a roll, compiling a joint-world record tally of 18 consecutive Test victories, they were the rising force, hunting down the Kiwis. Not any more. They are fading fast.
Unless there is a spectacular reversal of fortunes in the final Test here, Jones will be going into November fighting for his future in charge of England, a scenario that would have seemed utterly unthinkable as recently as early February this year.
The RFU appointed him to avoid just this sort of predicament. Jones was brought in to replace Stuart Lancaster as an experienced, respected, pedigree figure who would have answers and solutions, no matter how grave the situation. That is what the union signed up for, at great expense.
But one of the most striking features of England’s latest defeat was that Jones was left bewildered and perplexed. He has realised that, for now, he doesn’t have answers and solutions. There has been a broken-record English soundtrack in recent days and months, endless talk of lessons being learned, hard work behind the scenes, perfect preparation and absolute conviction that a revival is close
at hand. But lessons are not being learned. Granted, there is hard work — endless, flat- out diligence and intensity but not necessarily ideal preparation; not when staying at sea level led to reasonable claims that England were ill-equipped to handle conditions at altitude.
And most of all, collective belief has not been reflected in the results. On Saturday night, the party line was the visitors were just ‘two or three per cent’ off the level needed to break their losing habit. It didn’t look that way.
Once they went behind, there was an inevitability about the outcome. They were miles off.
Jones’s weary, dejected squad are going round in circles, in a long downward spiral. In the second Test, as in the first and in the four games before that, they conceded far too many penalties.
There were errors on top of errors, knock- ons, over-throws and missed tackles. Yet again, there was trouble at the breakdown. Yet again, composure vanished whenever the pressure came on. An aura had built up around Jones’s England and it has been lost. For so long, they were winning close games through sheer belief and habit. That habit is a distant memory.
On this tour, two flying starts have been squandered. Two big leads have been thrown away. The players keep saying they believe in what they are doing, but the evidence says something different. A series whitewash is a very real prospect. The Boks are improving fast, from a low base. Rassie Erasmus has united the squad and the country in support of this renaissance.
The home side have quickly established spirit and unity and
cohesion, even without several leading players.
Whatever the result in Cape Town, urgent change is required within England’s regime. Jones should recruit hard- hitting assistants to galvanise the whole operation. He needs new defence and attack coaches, for starters. Why not aim high and test Shaun Edwards’ loyalty to Wales? He is a proven defence guru and a man who would bring authority and clout.
Exeter head coach Rob Baxter could be another target, or even the great Kiwi mastermind, Wayne Smith. Such upheaval would not come cheap but a few tweaks of playing personnel won’t suffice.
The current methods aren’t working, that much is clear to see. There has to be a fresh approach, before deadline day, when regime change could become inevitable.