Eddie’s broad grin said it all – he may as well have stuck two fingers up…
Hjones vindicated as his side produce their best in face of excellent opponents and an early setback
Eddie Jones is too seasoned a campaigner to show open delight at yet again confounding his critics. For all that, he might as well have danced on the spot, sticking two fingers up at the camera, in his post-france interview because you could see the edge in his broad grin.
For England to stay with a French team who charged out of the blocks took a lot of character. The blistering simplicity of their try after only 80 seconds could have sunk a less determined team and it is telling that there are few shouting about Plan B or who is leading the team. As I have continually said, Plan B is little more than recognising when England’s kicking strategy is not being executed properly and stopping it.
On Saturday England kicked well and they kicked to recover the ball rather than playing long-range “kick tennis”. That amended strategy successfully limited the involvement of a dangerous French back three who showed, on the limited occasions they were able to play, that if left untrammelled they could have run amok.
It was reported that England have been working with a referee on unfair penalties and how to react to them. The efficacy of this practice was not really tested because England did not give away a penalty until the second quarter. That, as much as anything they did or did not do in the rest of the game, was the basis of their win. How much easier is the game when everything you do is not undermined by the concession of needless penalties?
Maro Itoje, scorer of England’s game-winning try, played on the right side of the line and showed the excuses made for his previous offending were just that. It is true: if you take out that part of his game, he will not be the player he is, he will be – and is – an even better player.
Perhaps it is just a reflection of a day when England played well but I think there is some correlation between the reduced penalty count and their reduced error rate. When you put yourselves under pressure by continually conceding penalties, you also feel impelled to make amends and often end up forcing a play when you get the opportunity.
Without that pressure a lot of things seem easier and confidence is built throughout the game. Though England were stretched at times, their scramble defence just about held and this rediscovered tenacity helped them absorb a ludicrously well-executed try by France just before half-time. In the end it was France who cracked first in a game in which momentum shifted several times. Their second half was marked by penalties and basic mistakes which ceded control to England but, that said, Owen Farrell and his decision-makers deserve credit for accepting what was given to them and making the most of it.
When England deconstruct their performances in this tournament, they are going to see how much flowed from the original squad selection. The limited numbers in the squad meant choosing from a pool of 28 as against 35, the norm for their opponents. This limited Jones’s room for manoeuvre and scope to refresh his starting line-up, but there is another issue that has been more significant.
The fact the Saracens players, except for the exceptional Itoje, have taken time to recover their form can now be seen to stem from the fact they had no club game time before the tournament. It is easy to say Jones should have known that but, even with that hindsight, it is not easy to tell him what he should have done about it.
What would have been said if he had left out all those players and rid the squad of their hundreds of caps
of experience? The English Championship did not restart until two weeks ago, so the Saracens players would not have had any game time outside the squad before the Wales game. They would have had one game against the Cornish Pirates before last weekend, and how many people would have honestly said, in advance, that this would have been sufficient preparation to face a particularly good French outfit?
The only way Jones could have retained the services of Farrell, Jamie George, Mako and Billy Vunipola and Elliot Daly is to do what he did and give them game time in the Six Nations. Even if he had picked them in the squad and not started them, he could have sharpened their fitness in camp, but their game time would still have been limited from the bench.
The more I look at this, the more I say England’s tournament has been as atypical as the times in which the tournament has fallen.
hreturn
England and France put on a spectacle at Twickenham, where England noticeably abandoned their kick-focused strategy by kicking out of hand just nine per cent of their total possession.
of running rugby
hwelsh
Wayne Pivac did well to survive a debut year with just three wins and seven defeats as Wales head coach. Few backed them to be Grand Slam contenders this year, which just goes to show how competitive the championship remains.
underdogs
htry
First-phase tries remain a rarity, which made Damian Penaud’s try (below) all the more thrilling to watch as France swept from left to right without an English defender getting close to stopping them.
of the season?
hgoing
Six of the 11 matches so far were won by less than one score. In comparison, just two matches were still winnable for either side in the final minute in the autumn.
down to the wire hantoine Dupont
The Six Nations claims to be rugby’s best championship, yet has produced the World Player of the Year only six times in 19 years. But now it can genuinely boast the best, in France’s magnificent scrum-half.
Jack de Menezes