EDDIE’S SWITCHED THINGS UP
FINISHERS, the third set-piece and flick the switch. Eddie Jones is not one to shy away from using his own terminology to describe the facets of the game he wishes to highlight. Finishers is a term used to try to keep the 23-man squad focused, not just the 15, and drive the importance of the eight players who do not start.
The third set-piece is the ability of his team to dominate the kicking game, to impose their kicking strategy on to the opposition, and nullify them. Lastly, the freshly appropriated phrase of ‘flick the switch’ relates to the transition between either attack of defence.
None of these areas are new revelations in coaching. The bench being psychologically and physically ready for when they enter the fray has always been talked about. The need to win the kicking battle, or understand the importance of mentally ‘flicking the switch’ when the ball is turned over is coached from a young age.
What is new is how Jones makes it a real ‘thing’. When the England coach focuses on that area, we know he sees it as one of real importance and where the team has huge growth potential.
Take one of the first comments he made about English rugby at the beginning of his regime. Jones felt the players were too slow off the floor, so his analysts started measuring the players and how quickly they bounced off the floor post contact. Were they able to make double if not triple efforts? It instills a mentality of being a hard working, relentless team – the basis of any championship side. This phrase ‘flick the switch’ about the transition is again nothing new or revolutionary, but it helps with monitoring the workrate and spatial awareness of his players.
Do they understand where the turnover has come from? Can they react and adapt to the circumstances, recognise an overlap on the edge, or how to shut down the opposition and kill their attacking threat.
Much has been made of the physical prowess of England, and certainly against Ireland they showed it. A total of 226 tackles to Ireland’s 73 is a monumental shift.
Most teams with that lack of possession, and that physical exposure, would eventually run out of energy, but from start to finish England looked remarkably comfortable.
It was one of these new ‘flick-theswitch’ moments that led to Jonny May’s wonder try. A turned-over lineout, shifted to the edge, with the Irish not in their normal defensive set-up, was exposed by May’s brilliance.
These are the areas in which international rugby is won. Most countries are comfortable from setpiece launches and into three to four phases of attack. It is when the game breaks up that England are looking to exploit the frailties of others.
It leaves us wondering, once Jones is happy with the foundations of those set-pieces, the hard work and his team’s ability to understand those moments of transition, will he allow his players to unleash an all-court game?
Against a limping Wales team this weekend, he has an opportunity.
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It is when the game breaks up that England look to exploit the frailties of others