England face heat training in Italy before World Cup
Jones says conditions in Treviso similar to Japan Lozowski awaits results of two appeal hearings
Eddie Jones is to expose his England squad to two “heat” training camps in Italy next summer ahead of the World Cup in Japan after admitting that some of his men experienced a negative reaction to draining conditions during testing.
Jones claimed that the northern Italian city of Treviso would come close to replicating the conditions that his players are likely to experience in Japan and has planned two eight- to 10-day camps in July and August next year as a key part of his World Cup preparations.
“Treviso’s climatic conditions are very similar to the possible conditions we could encounter in Japan, and climatic synergy is good,” said the head coach.
“We can get a hotel and training ground that, again, is going to be very similar to what we’ll have in Japan, and it’s a rugby town.”
The move follows Jones’s decision to subject his players to “heat stress” testing at their training base at Pennyhill Park, in Bagshot, ahead of the tour of South Africa in June, with heating equipment generating temperatures of up to 30C (86F) and 75 per cent humidity to replicate the conditions the players could face in Tokyo.
While Jones said players such as Owen Farrell and George Ford were able to “find a way to react” to the challenge of playing in the heat, others had struggled.
“We’ve already heat-tested the players once and there were a number of them who have negative reactions to heat,” Jones added.
“So, we have to do more work in getting them right to cope with heat. We heat-tested them at Pennyhill before the South Africa tour. We set up the 3G area with a similar climate to test the players in a session.
“You do all their blood and saliva testing to find out how they are coping with the heat.”
Jones said the heat acclimatisation could result in various physiological, metabolic and perceptual adaptations that reduce the detrimental effects from the stress caused by those conditions on a player’s performance.
“You struggle to retain your work rate and then you struggle to retain intensity in terms of your skill execution,” Jones added. “They’re the two factors.
“There’s a scientific approach but the common-sense approach is that if you’re playing in warm weather, get used to it.
“Get used to physically, mentally and skill-wise how to play in those conditions. And there are all the science bits about when you train and when you don’t train. How you recover, that’s all the fancy stuff.”
Asked why he has chosen Treviso specifically, Jones added: “I’ve got a good mate there who I coached at Saracens, Fabio Ongaro, the Italian hooker.
“So, he’s the coach there, I’ve been over there on a number of occasions, and then we did some climatic checks of where the conditions are very similar and that came up. We investigated a bit more and it became almost a nobrainer for us.” Meanwhile, Farrell is confident that his co-captaincy appointment with Dylan Hartley will not lead to any confusion in England’s decision-making. “Dylan and I have been on the same page for a long time,” said Farrell. “We are usually pretty aligned anyway, probably because of the amount of conversations we have off the field. I guess that’s a pretty important thing going into this.
“It fits into what we have been doing seamlessly anyway.
“We are close enough and honest enough and I don’t think it would ever be awkward if either of us had a problem.”
England will have to wait for the results of two separate appeal hearings today to find out whether Saracens centre Alex Lozowski will be available for the opening Quilter International against South Africa at Twickenham on Nov 3.
Lozowski initially received a two-week ban for a clear-out on Glasgow Warriors hooker Fraser Brown that “warranted a red card” according to an independent disciplinary committee. He was cleared of another charge, for a high tackle on Glasgow’s Ruaridh Jackson, in the same game after his opponent provided evidence by phone.