Jones must err on side of youth – even if it means sacrificing results

Last weekend’s games were the final chance for players to make their case to be included in the England squad for the autumn internationals. There are rumours that England will seek to play with more freedom and if this is so, Eddie Jones should err on the side of youth in his selection.

I rarely say this, but with this series of games the results are of secondary importance. Genuine England supporters will accept experimentation. Jones needs to know, and fans want to know, what England’s nascent talent can do.

We need to see whether England have the depth of talent that, say, France have at half-back. Can Marcus Smith and Joe Simmonds combine with Harry Randall and Raffi Quirke? The Ben Youngs, George Ford, and Owen Farrell options have been so fully evaluated they have become sclerotic. Without fresh impetus, Jones has nowhere to go with this pivotal team unit. What will he gain by refusing to try new options?

Some pundits have advocated ignoring Manu Tuilagi’s return to fitness, but you cannot ignore what a fit Tuilagi brings to England. Farrell or Henry Slade would balance Tuilagi and give England secondary playmakers and kickers. Tuilagi also gives any new fly-half a fallback option as a powerful ball carrier. This is particularly important when England are forced to play with static ball and need to get over the gain line.

England’s back three should be an area of strength, given their depth of talent. Unfortunately, in the past 18 months we simply have not seen enough in terms of counterattacking from kicked ball or from England’s own possession.

Adam Radwan, Freddie Steward, or Max Malins are surely worth a run in one of the starting XVS, particularly as they can be teamed with Anthony Watson and Jonny May. Mind you, of equal, or greater, importance is that whichever players are picked, they are encouraged to be positive. They must look to attack with ball in hand when there is opportunity, rather than getting embroiled in interminable kick-tennis duels against opponents, such as South Africa, who are much better at playing that game.

However strong the clamour for experimentation, one fundamental always applies. England will do nothing if they are beaten up front and, therefore, calls for change in the forwards have to be tempered with realism.

Jones picked a number of young and uncapped props and hookers in his recent 45-man training squad and, while you could play one or two of them from the bench in the first game against Tonga, that is not so against Australia and South Africa. Get your set-pieces wrong and the whole team is compromised.

Last week’s column considered Jones’s possibilities at No8 and the cases of Alex Dombrandt and Sam Simmonds to start ahead of Billy Vunipola.

The only addition to the argument is that Jones could play both of those by picking one of them as a blindside flanker. This would mean Jones would not have to move Maro Itoje or Courtney Lawes out of the second row, where they are most effective. This is all the more important, given Joe Launchbury’s unavailability.

The Aussie and Springbok games will be proper tests whoever Jones picks, but the results, within reason, are secondary to what he can discover if he is bold.

Finally, and this point might be overlooked by some, Jones has to meld a new and untried coaching team. He, Martin Gleeson, Anthony Seibold and Richard Cockerill have a clean slate to fashion their plans to lead England into the next World Cup.

They, too, must step up to the mark.