Jones meets referees’ chief over breakdown concerns

Eddie Jones, the England head coach, has met the Rugby Football Union’s referees’ chief in a bid to address his side’s breakdown woes heading into the World Cup.

Jones last week requested that Tony Spreadbury, the RFU head of professional game match officials, permit his Premiership officials to allow more of a contest at the breakdown, where England have suffered greatly this year.

Against Scotland, which was the start of a five-test losing run, Hamish Watson and John Barclay ran riot at the breakdown under the watch of Welsh referee Nigel Owens. Afterwards, Jones admitted: “We got caught at the breakdown area against a side that double jackals so we need to change a few things technically and the mindset of the players.”

As highlighted in The Daily Telegraph this week, there is a considerable difference between the amount of jackalling attempts between the Gallagher Premiership and Pro14. Last season, there were 42.3 rucks per jackal turnover in the Premiership compared with 35.3 in the Pro14, which hints at a significant difference in interpretation of the tackle area between English referees and their counterparts in other counties.

Jones believes that it may take up to a year to change his players’ behaviour in this area and asked Spreadbury to bring his referees’ interpretation more into line with other countries.

“He wants a contest,” said Spreadbury. “I said that’s fine but we are going to referee the laws of the game. He accepts that and it’s also seeing how the players react this weekend whether they are any different in their approach in how they want to play the breakdown.”

The first match of the Premiership season between Bath and Bristol this evening will provide a fascinating test case. Jones will be in the stands at Ashton Gate.