READY, EDDIE GO
Fit and fast England will fly into Pumas, vows Jones
STAGE two of England’s global mission begins this morning with what Eddie Jones calls a ‘test of manhood’ against Argentina.
It is a test he expects his team to pass with flying colours. The endangered Pumas await in the serious phase of the pool stage when England will face heightened pressure. They breezed through stage one by seeing off Tonga and the USA without incurring any casualties. In fact, remarkably, the England squad are in a better state of health now than when they arrived in Japan.
Instead of incurring damage while easing past those Tier 2 opponents with only four recovery days in between, they have been boosted by the recovery of Mako Vunipola, Jack Nowell and Henry Slade — who are now poised to make impacts off the bench.
All 31 players are available for selection, a rare and welcome luxury. So the Sweet Chariot is reinforced and rolling towards the
If you want to know what it’ll be like in the middle of the scrum today, picture yourself being squeezed from all angles by 15 huge blokes, struggling to breathe, whilst being hit in the face by a mouthful of saliva.
Then factor in that you’re probably rubbing faces with someone with impetigo — or scrum-pox as we call it — and you’re halfway there. It’s a pretty horrible place, yet us hookers and props live for it.
It’s a huge physical battle, but it’s also psychological warfare.
Today’s Test against Argentina will be no exception. Scrums are one of the old bastions of our sport and something we need to appreciate.
When the two packs set up for the first scrum, there is always a very calm moment before the hit when you go through the processes that you’ve spent hours perfecting. you want to show the referee that you’re technically very good — not over-leaning, controlling your weight with good body positions.
you want to paint a picture so the referee says: ‘All right, these guys mean business.’
There’s sometimes a bit of bickering, asking the referee to look at an angle or foot position — or calling out someone about their weight. It’s not quite wicketkeeper standard and you can’t say too much with ref links and TV microphones, but that doesn’t always stop Joe Marler!
As a hooker, you have to deliver a lot of key messages. once you set and engage, then ‘bang’, all of your practice comes to the fore.
Most teams have a collective call — ‘Hit, two, three’ or something similar — to make sure your timing is right and all 16 feet are pushing into the ground at the same time. So many parts of rugby are individual — carrying, tackling, breakdown — but the scrum is a collective effort. If one man doesn’t turn up, the other seven are vulnerable.
The front- row has to carry the weight of their team-mates through their lower back, spine and neck. you hold your breath to expand your chest to stay rigid and strong. you’re hit by a smell of Deep Heat, grass, dribble and sweat. At hooker, the arteries in your neck can be pinned and that cuts off the oxygen to your head.
I’ve fainted twice in this situation. you can burst blood vessels in your face from holding your breath and pushing too hard — that’s why you see guys with blotchy faces after the game. you have to get the balance right. If the scrum goes down, your face is in the dirt, tasting grass.
There used to be the so-called dark arts of the scrum. My first taste of this was in my second Premiership game, when Danny Grewcock slipped his bind and punched me in the face three times. you would go over the top of another scrum and look for someone’s hand to stand on.
you can’t do that now. There are cameras everywhere and it’s picked up. Dark arts have shifted to being technically sound.
ultimately you want to provide a strong platform to deliver the ball to Billy Vunipola’s feet.
once you’ve achieved that, you can go for the double- shove penalty advantage if you’re in the ascendency. There’s no better ball for George ford and owen farrell than free-ball, penalty advantage, if they want to speculate and try out something in attack.
What you don’t want is for the ball to be stuck at the lock’s feet.
If that happens, the No 8 has to dig it out, so you lose one man’s footing. When one foot is off of the ground it’s 15 feet against 16 feet!
you can have all the technique and all the processes in the world but sometimes it comes down to sheer bloody-mindedness.
Argentina are an emotional pack with plenty of kilos so that makes them a challenge for anyone. for me, however, England and South Africa have the best scrums in the world. The scrum is part of England’s DNA. They do not fear anyone. They will be looking to assert their dominance, physically and psychologically, and keep Argentina guessing — when are they going to scrum and when are they going to play away?
They’ll put the squeeze on sometimes and they’ll launch Billy off the back other times.
What makes England’s pack even more impressive is their collective ability around the park.
Guys like Luke Cowan-Dickie, Jamie George, Mako Vunipola and Marler have deft handling skills, strong carrying, massive defence and breakdown presence.
Rewind 10 years and that stuff was a bonus — now it’s the norm.
But all those guys love nothing more than a scrum and they’ll be licking their lips at the prospect of facing the Pumas today.