Pressure on Simmonds to prove he can be Jones’ hunter-in-chief
For all the obvious progress England have made under Eddie Jones, the one area that would still give the head coach cause for concern is the back row.
With the countdown to the World Cup beginning in earnest, this is the time when Jones would want to be nailing down his first, second and third choices in each position and giving them time to play. Injury and loss of form mean he has been unable to do that.
He has gone with Courtney Lawes, Chris Robshaw and Sam Simmonds against Italy, and while I am confident they will do an excellent job, it is a sign of Jones’s difficulties that this is the 11th different back-row combination he has picked in England’s last 16 internationals. Injuries have played their part, particularly the loss of Billy Vunipola. Nathan Hughes has been growing into the role as Vunipola’s understudy but he, too, is injured, which has left Jones with a real issue. The main beneficiary is not a forward but a back – Ben Te’o. There is no one else in the squad with that destructive carrying ability, which I think is why Jones has selected him ahead of Jonathan Joseph in the centres.
It does, though, leave them with questions in the back row. When judging Jones’s choices I would bear in mind that the perfect back row needs three key elements:
The grafter. Someone who does the dirty, unseen work but is loved by coaches and team-mates for it.
The hunter. A figure who is hungry for the ball, whether their side is in possession or not, and is constantly hunting it down.
The go-to. Someone who guarantees you forward momentum and can intimidate.
Chris Robshaw is a grafter, and Billy Vunipola a go-to man. I think Sam Underhill could turn out to be the hunter – the role I played – but time will tell. The reason Underhill is only on the bench this weekend is because Simmonds was the next man in at No8, and with both having only three caps each it would have been a risk to have two inexperienced players starting.
It means the spotlight is on Simmonds, and I am interested to see how he copes with it. There is no question the Exeter man is an exciting prospect, but he is very different to Vunipola. For a start, he is five stones lighter, so bashing through people is not an option, but he makes up for that in footwork and speed.
Simmonds will aim for the outside shoulder of defenders, something Vunipola doesn’t have to do as he can go straight through them, and he will look for offloading opportunities. He will be asked to do some hunting as well, but that part of the game is one where England do not have a specialist so the breakdown is an area where Italy will believe they can have some joy.
Courtney Lawes will certainly add some muscle, and while I was slightly surprised to see him at No 6 ahead of Maro Itoje I don’t think the number on his back will make much difference. Jones has fully embraced the idea of the modern, all-round forward – locks who are comfortable in the back row, and vice versa. The England trio of Lawes, Itoje and Joe Launchbury are arguably the finest examples of this type of player in the world. They can pack down at lock or at flanker, are line-out specialists and have the explosive pace to do the job of a back-row forward as well as the strength to do the traditional grunt work of a second row.
I would expect all three of Lawes, Itoje and Launchbury to do some of the dog work you would normally expect from a traditional flanker.
That said, Jones will definitely want to nail down a preferred combination at six, seven and eight soon. When we won the World Cup in 2014, I had played with Sarah Hunter and Marlie Packer, the starting back row in the final, for a number of years so we knew exactly how to work as a unit. It was exactly the same for the “Holy Trinity” of Richard Hill, Neil Back and Lawrence Dallaglio when the men won in 2003.
These units take time to build and, while the trio Jones has selected this weekend should do the job against Italy, there is still a lot of work to be done ahead of the World Cup.