Jones: No one is untouchable
England coach axes full-back Daly for first time in five years George dropped for France clash in favour of Cowan-dickie
England head coach Eddie Jones yesterday demonstrated that his “untouchables” are no more, as he dropped Elliot Daly and Jamie George for tomorrow’s Guinness Six Nations match against France.
With their title defence already in tatters, Jones has dropped Daly for the first time in five years by handing a first start to Bristol full-back Max Malins. Luke Cowan-dickie replaces George at hooker, while Charlie Ewels comes in for Jonny Hill in the second row. Centre Ollie Lawrence is also named among the replacements.
Jones had been steadfast in his loyalty to the spine of the team who reached the 2019 World Cup final and especially the large Saracens contingent who entered this championship with next to no game time and, it quickly emerged, form.
A 40-24 defeat by Wales has proved the catalyst for change, with Jones now discussing a team entering a transition phase.
Daly, who won his 50th cap at the Principality Stadium, is the biggest casualty. Not since the 2016 series against Australia has Daly found himself on the bench for England. Having earned a place in the 2017 Lions Test team as a wing, Daly was converted to full-back by Jones in 2018 but the switch was not an overwhelming success.
Jones tried Northampton’s George Furbank at full-back in the first two matches of last year’s Six Nations, with Daly on the wing, before pulling the plug on that experiment.
Now it is Malins’ turn. A playmaker in the Alex Goode mould, Malins, who is on loan at Bristol from Saracens, offers greater security under the high ball for what Jones is anticipating to be a bombardment of French kicks.
“He’s really impressed us since he’s been in the squad,” Jones said. “He’s got a good kick return game, a good feeling for the game, brings pace on to the ball and particularly playing against a team like France, who are the highest kicking and longest kicking in the world, the
full-back is pretty busy and so he will have a big role for us.”
George was also named on the bench against Italy, but this is the highest profile match that he has missed through selection since finally usurping Dylan Hartley as first-choice starter in 2018. What Cowan-dickie lacks in George’s lineout security, he makes up for in the dynamism of his ball-carrying.
“He’s a really powerful ball-carrier and a powerful defender,” Jones said. “He’s a strong scrummager too and he’s very powerful at the back of driving mauls – so he has brought all that and he is in the best physical condition I’ve ever seen him.”
The selection of Ewels, meanwhile, was made in part to relief the burden of lineout calling on Maro Itoje, who conceded five penalties against Wales.
“Maro has been carrying a fairly heavy load there,” Jones said. “We have always had, up until last season, George Kruis or Joe Launchbury looking after that area with Maro being involved.”
Jones correctly forecast that the final quarter of the Wales match would prove decisive. England had pulled level at 24-24 only to concede 16 unanswered points in the last 15 minutes. However, Jones had no qualms about repeating his prediction but hopes the strength of a bench reinforced by George and Daly can swing the result in England’s favour.
“The history of the games between France and other Six Nations opponents is that their last
20 minutes tends to be their least productive,” Jones said. “We feel as we saw in the Autumn Nations Cup, that if we can be in the position to win the game in the last 20 with the finishers we have got, we will put ourselves in the best position to do that.”
After attracting controversy for promising to inflict “brutal physicality” upon France in last year’s corresponding fixture, Jones was at pains to praise Les Bleus chasing a Grand Slam with the threat of scrum-half Antoine Dupont looming large in his mind.
“They are a very well-coached, very well-drilled team that plays a certain pattern,” Jones said. “Our defence around the ruck has got to be good, it has got to be tight. We’d like him [Dupont] to have a tidy game, do all the simple things well but not any of the special things. If we can keep him in a little box, then it will be a good result for us.”