Ruthless Jones
Care axed for brutal clash with Australia
Eddie Jones is preparing his men for a “brutal, physical” encounter against Australia at Twickenham by showing the same degree of ruthlessness in selection, ditching longterm replacement scrum-half Danny Care, centre Alex Lozowski and back-row forward Zach Mercer from a 28-man squad who met up at Pennyhill Park last night.
Wasps No 8 Nathan Hughes comes straight back into the fray after serving a six-week suspension for punching and conduct unbecoming to the game, after he had tweeted “what a joke” during the disciplinary hearing.
Care’s place goes to the man who came on for him during Saturday’s laboured win over Japan, Saracens’ 35-year-old Richard Wigglesworth, a reward for his astuteness and enduring efforts in the No9 shirt.
Care scored the opening try against Japan, yet England lost their way. Jones has wasted no time in reacting to that below-par display. This is the last of the Quilter internationals and with only the Six Nations Championship to come before World Cup warm-up matches in the build-up to departure for Japan, Jones knows that he has to refine his squad choices at every available opportunity. Wigglesworth certainly brought poise as well as cleverness when he came on.
“Selection is always a response to performance,” said Jones, who revealed that wing Chris Ashton is having a scan on a calf problem, while Manu Tuilagi continues to be involved despite a nagging groin issue and is in the mix for Saturday as his injury is managed with caution. Northampton back Piers Francis has also been called up.
“We are just changing the squad to look how we can improve it. We weren’t happy with some aspects and he [Care] can go away and work on them. We think he [Wigglesworth] is the right guy for this week,” said Jones.
Wigglesworth and first-choice Ben Youngs will be charged with bringing direction to England’s game, a quality that Jones believes is as important in the modern era as any physical contribution.
“The big games are more brutal, more physical, longer but with shorter periods of play,” said Jones. “The physical demands on the players are getting greater and greater. And the mental demands. You look at the Tests at the weekend, how physical they were, how brutal. It will be no different this week. It is becoming a real power game.
“The game is getting longer and longer. Now the games are longer, the players have more time to think. You have 60 minutes of a 100-minute game where the players have to think [with the ball not in play]. The ability to think about what is next – your next set of tactics, what you are going to do – is going to become an even more important part of the game. You have the physical strand and the thinking strand at the same time.”
Ireland are England’s first opponents in the 2019 Six Nations, the most difficult of starts for Jones’s team as they look to repair the reputational stain of their fifth-place finish in last season’s tournament. Jones insists he has not yet considered that contest against the defending Grand-slam champions and dismissed the notion that Ireland’s win over the All Blacks would have a bearing on their fortunes in the World Cup.
“It will have no consequence on the World Cup, none at all,” said Jones, who took no false solace in the prospect of a New Zealand team being on the wane. “If I were Steve Hansen I’d be hurting a lot now, but I’d have the knowledge that we’re going to learn a lot from this game. They’ll come back stronger and better.
“I think there are about eight teams who are contenders for the World Cup. Ireland are definitely a contender. We’re going along at a good pace. The only thing that counts is when you get to the World Cup.”
A fixture against Australia does, of course, carry an added resonance for Jones, who declined to indulge in the sort of verbal sledging of his former Randwick team-mate, Wal-
laby head coach Michael Cheika, that characterised England’s cleansweep tour there in 2016. Jones, though, did have supportive words for Australia’s centurion scrumhalf, Will Genia, whom he once used to tutor.
“I remember this fat little bloke in the academy and they said, nah, he doesn’t work hard enough, and then I remember having a meeting with his dad, who was minister of justice and foreign affairs for Papua New Guinea,” said Jones. “We had a chat about what he needed to do, where he wanted to go, and I never saw a boy work as hard as him.
“We didn’t train on Thursdays in those days, but Will would always come up with a bag of balls and practise his box-kicking.
“It’s a real tribute to him where he has got to and what a great player he has been for Australia.
“As an Australian, you always want your team to do well – but I don’t want them to do well this week.”