Jones turns to Carling to help restore England pride
Grand Slam winner to be leadership mentor Youngs backs return of ‘game-changer’ Tuilagi
Will Carling, England’s Grand Slam-winning captain of the 1990s, is to make a surprise return to the national set-up as a leadership mentor for Eddie Jones’s squad.
Carling, who led his country to three Grand Slams between 1991 and 1995, is to take up the position next week in what Jones believes could be a critical appointment for his squad’s World Cup preparations.
Carling, who was England’s youngest captain at the age of 22, will spend two days a week working with the squad as one of three new appointments to Jones’s management team.
Jones also confirmed that sprint specialist Jonas Dodoo had joined on a “permanent part-time” basis. Dodoo has worked with elite performers across a range of sports, including 2012 Olympic long jump champion Greg Rutherford.
Meanwhile Jon Clarke, the former Widnes, Warrington and Great Britain rugby league player, has been named as the squad’s strength and conditioning coach.
The appointment of Carling, who also captained England to the 1991 World Cup final when they lost to Australia at Twickenham, however, is the most eye-catching.
Jones said he considered a number of former England internationals for the position but felt that Carling’s leadership experience would bring a new dimension to the squad’s management.
“I have met Will continuously over the last two years and I think he can add value to the senior players in the squad with his experience,” said Jones.
“He joins the great past of England to the present. It is a similar thing to what the All Blacks have done with great players and I think Will can play a role for us.
“He’s a bit of a specialist in leadership. He understands English rugby. He understands what made English rugby great, so combining the skill of leadership with the knowledge of English history is a nice resource for us to have.
“This is not a coaching job. In a lot of ways it has got to do specifically with English rugby. I want the past to be linked to the present and also then to give the players some additional help with leadership.”
Carling has at times been a controversial figure, provoking an angry response from England players during the failed 2015 World Cup campaign for criticising the squad’s “classroom-orientated environment” in the wake of the defeat by Wales.
Jones, however, believes Carling’s iconic status as one of England’s most successful captains will bring a key English perspective to his management team who, apart from forwards coach Steve Borthwick and the English-born Neal Hatley, are from overseas. John Mitchell, the defence coach, is a New Zealander while attack coach Scott Wisemantel is an Australian, like Jones.
“I’ve thought about it all along, particularly because I’m not English,” Jones added. “I can’t preach to the players about having pride in England. I don’t attempt to. I have always said that. I’ve thought we have had possibly a gap in that area.
“We’ve got Steve Borthwick, an ex-england captain, but it is nice to have something from the past. I have seen it work well for the All Blacks. I have seen it work well for Australia, Japan too. They all have someone from the past that keeps that connection in place. I think that’s important and that is what he will bring.
“I considered a number of people [for the job]. I felt that Will is the best equipped to handle it.”
Meanwhile, the prospect of the return of another cult England centre, Manu Tuilagi, to the starting line-up to face South Africa at Twickenham on Saturday is generating excitement among his teammates.
Tuilagi has not started a Test for England since June 2014 because of a succession of injuries but is poised to start at the weekend, having returned to his destructive best in Leicester’s victory over the Scarlets in the Champions Cup match 11 days ago.
“People are getting excited about Manu being back in the squad and people are right to be excited,” said England scrum-half Ben Youngs, also his team-mate at Leicester.
“He is a game-changer. Before he had such a terrible run of injuries, if you look back to 2013, he was tearing down trees.
“We haven’t seen enough of him since. We had a glimpse of him with England in 2016, at the end of that Six Nations, when he was part of the squad. We saw him the other week against the Scarlets; the damage he created. People are going to get unbelievably excited about it.
“Australia have got [Israel] Folau; a game-changer who can make something out of nothing and win you a game, with the last play of the game. Manu is that person for England.”