Jones aims to use Saracens ire to unite Six Nations squad
Eddie Jones, the England head coach, is determined to harness the anger created by the Saracens salary-cap scandal and has vowed to make his team “the greatest in rugby history”.
Jones unveiled a new-look 34man squad for the Six Nations Championship, including eight uncapped players, as he looks to reset their sights after reaching the World Cup final last year. He has included seven Saracens players, whose futures are under the spotlight since the English champions accepted automatic relegation from the Premiership on Saturday.
The England squad fly to Portugal on Thursday, when Jones will run an open forum for any player to air their grievances, with rival clubs still demanding Saracens return the Premiership trophies they won during the three-season period in which they were in breach of the £7million cap.
The meeting will also include a first debrief since England lost the final 32-12 to South Africa, which Jones described as a “failure”.
“We need to get everything out on the table and sort it out, 100 per cent,” Jones said. “If players are angry about it, then say it. I don’t envisage any problems at all. In fact, I think it is an opportunity for the team to get tighter.
“Every national team I have coached has those problems. I remember coaching Japan and the Panasonic players hated the Suntory players, so we had to sort it out. That happens.”
The air of uncertainty around
Saracens’ England contingent increased as The Daily Telegraph understands scheduled one-on-one meetings between players and the club hierarchy were cancelled at short notice yesterday. With the majority of Premiership clubs a long way towards completing their recruitment for next season, there is no obvious destination for Saracens’ stars to head.
Mark Mccall, the Saracens director of rugby, confirmed he was seeking talks with Jones, who said that a conversation would only take place “at the appropriate time”, which would appear to be after England’s opening match against France on Feb 2 at the earliest. “The only thing we can do is prepare for the French game,” Jones said.
Jones unashamedly wants to elevate England into the pantheon of rugby’s great teams in the two years he has remaining on his contract.
England briefly touched those heights in the 19-7 World Cup semifinal victory over New Zealand, which Jones says is the benchmark.
“We want to be remembered as
the greatest team that ever played rugby,” Jones said. “We played a great game against the All Blacks, but we’ve only done that one. When you’ve been in that area, you want to do it sustainably.”
After No8 Billy Vunipola broke an arm in Saracens’ 27-24 victory over Racing 92 on Sunday, Jones suffered a further injury setback as wing Jack Nowell requires an ankle operation. It is understood that Nowell has been carrying the injury since the World Cup and decided to withdraw from selection.
Four others from the World Cup squad – Mark Wilson, Henry Slade, Joe Cokanasiga and Piers Francis – are also unavailable due to injury. Prop Dan Cole, hooker Jack Singleton and wing Ruaridh Mcconnochie are dropped.
In their place, Wasps fly-half Jacob Umaga, nephew of All Blacks great Tana, is the third fly-half, while Saracens back-row Ben Earl is rewarded for his excellent form. A trio of Northampton players – full-back George Furbank, second row Alex Moon and centre Fraser Dingwall – all come in, while Bath front-rowers Tom Dunn and Will Stuart, along with Gloucester wing Ollie Thorley, complete the uncapped contingent. Alex Mitchell, the Northampton scrum-half, and Josh Hodge, the Newcastle fullback, come into the squad as apprentices.
Joe Marler, the Harlequins prop, remains in the squad, having come out of retirement to play in a World Cup campaign that still dominates Jones’s thoughts. He has held individual conversations with most of the squad regarding England’s loss to South Africa, for which Jones said: “I accept full responsibility.”
Eddie Jones has repeated his desire to have two referees on the field in order to police the breakdown and the offside line effectively and “open up” the game.
Jones suggested the radical move in November 2018 following England’s 12-11 win over South Africa at Twickenham. Fourteen months on, he claimed that a “communication dead zone” had developed between international coaches and World Rugby, the game’s governing body.
In his view, the World Cup was characterised by confusion and illegal tactics at the breakdown, trends which brought about a greater reliance on kicking.
“We’ve got no idea how the referees are going to referee games. The World Cup didn’t allow teams to play with enough quick ball,” Jones said. “If we keep going down that track of making normal things that were previously illegal normal, then we’re going to have a slow, attritional game.”
Jones’s solution would be to increase the officiating team so there would be one referee at the breakdown and one monitoring the offside line, with assistant referees keeping an eye on defensive lines.
“We’ve got to open the game up,” he said. “Whether that’s going to happen in the Six Nations, I doubt that very much.”