Jones must rethink and tackle back-row problems

Billy Vunipola’s absence and the lack of a genuine No7 threaten next year’s World Cup ambitions

‘Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone …” In his search for paradise is Eddie Jones in danger of putting up a parking lot? England’s defeat by Scotland at Murrayfield recently brought into stark focus the problems England have in their back row; ones which without resolution will, at best, severely hamper England’s World Cup hopes. These are not new, but they were writ large in the defeat and should force a reassessment of Jones’s selection policy before it is too late to accommodate changes to England’s game.

The first is that if Billy Vunipola is not fit, England’s prospects are severely diminished, to the point you have to doubt whether they will be able to mount a serious challenge for rugby’s major prize.

Two aspects of Vunipola’s game are world-class – his carrying and presence over the loose ball at the breakdown. England have tried Nathan Hughes and Sam Simmonds at No8 and neither has been able to make the crucial hard yards against defences when they are tasked with taking the ball into set defences. In particular, they do not, as does Vunipola, make ground after the initial contact.

This is important because it is those yards that advance the offside in favour of England, making it more difficult for defenders to regroup and easier for England’s follow-up runners to pick angles and take the ball forward on the front foot.

Without this initial carry off slow ball, England’s other ballcarriers – and there are not enough of those anyway – have found it difficult to take the ball forward and England’s second-phase ball has been painfully slow.

Additionally, Vunipola frequently gets his hands on the ball on the floor and either turns it over or at least slows it down. In any game, you can see how crucial this is and you would be hard pushed to name a recent match when England have been decisively better in this area than their opponents.

Statistics do not tell you how much ball is slowed down, but there is a rough correlation to the number of turnovers effected by the back row during a game and England are nowhere near the top sides in this regard. All of this leads to another discussion of the balance of England’s back row.

Again, not new, but it must be obvious to any reasonably seasoned watcher that England cannot go on with makeshift combinations, particularly those that mandate players are played out of their usual positions.

A while back when I interviewed Jones, he said he had all but given up the search for a classically defined No 7. If one came along then fine, but no more fretting about playing two “six-and-ahalves”. That worked for a while, but it relied on players like James Haskell being given specific and limited tasks and depended on England’s overall game being ascendant. When England’s front five have not had the edge, they have problems as the instinctive contributions of a classic openside have been missing. When the opposition have not been kind enough to allow England to march from one expected position to the next, the restricted roles for the back row have been insufficient.

It is when pressure is at its highest that players revert to type and they struggle the most when playing out of position. Courtney Lawes does a decent job at No 6, but he would not be first choice over Chris Robshaw if Vunipola was fit. Further, you could cogently argue by making Robshaw play seven, a position in which Jones has previously said he would not be considered, you are weakening two positions.

A player like Don Armand, of Exeter, might have limitations and play similarly to Haskell, but he has the advantage of playing at seven every week. He instinctively looks to do the job of any openside and he is accomplished at what he does. When the pressure mounts, Armand reacts like an openside and is not having to think his way through the role. Who knows how much better he could become, given the spur of international rugby?

Of the other contenders, Brendon O’connor is Englandqualified and is in the classic role of a marauding No 7. Sam Underhill, Teimana Harrison, even the young and inexperienced Will Evans, of Leicester Tigers, could be given an opportunity to stake their case.

Whoever is chosen, the time has come to pick a player who plays weekly for his club at seven. We have seen the limitations of trying to cobble together a solution and they do not work at the highest level – it is time for a rethink.