This famous 5 can be Eddie’s England rocks
IT’S time for England to make much less noise off the pitch and to do their talking against South Africa on the pitch. There has been too much noise around England throughout 2018 and for me this has been at the heart of their recent decline.
Brain doctors, departing coaches, possible incoming coaches, injuries in training, squabbles with club owners and the appointment of cocaptains, whatever a co-captain is.
Enough of all that. England are heading down to play a rejuvenated Boks side and need to circle the wagons — and quickly.
England must now turn to their five gun players — the five players who have made themselves undroppable. They are the Saracens quartet of Owen Farrell, Maro Itoje — and I’m delighted to see him looking fresh and back to his very best — t he remarkable Mako Vunipola and his brother Billy who, although clearly short of match fitness, demonstrated that he has not lost any of his strength and power. Alongside them I would also place Elliot Daly.
These five are fundamental and England’s game needs to be built around them. Eddie Jones as head coach needs to be talking to them constantly and working with them more closely than ever. If this is not happening then they need to go and sit down with him — this is their team, nobody else’s. That quintet know how to win and are in form, they are confident and England need to feed off their excellence and knowledge.
My feeling is that there are quite a few Test places up for grabs, the Barbarians game only muddied the issue, so let’s see what messages come out of the camp over the coming days but do you know what I would like to see in midfield? I want to see Danny Cipriani at 10 with Ben Youngs at scrum- half, Farrell at 12 and Daly alongside him at centre. If that combo clicked it could be very exciting. I see absolutely no point in taking Cipriani unless he is given a start at some point and the first Test would be the ideal opportunity.
It is time England got back to the absolute basics of rugby which are more important than ever against South Africa. Scrum, line out, breakdown and restarts and quite simply getting into the opposition faces. Get on top of that and the rest of England’s game will flow and the other exciting talents can shine.
This is going to be a high octane series. The Springboks have picked their first ever black captain and many congratulations to Siya Kolisi, who is a terrific flanker in anyone’s language.
South African Rugby has been faced with unique and difficult challenges over the decades and I’m not sure that those of us on the outside looking in have ever understood the complexity of the situation. But I can see only good coming from Kolisi taking over as skipper and if he can help get the Boks back to consistent winning ways, and quickly, that would be a massive boost to world rugby. It can wait three matches, though!
He will be fired up, his team will be highly motivated, new coach Rassie Erasmus will be completely dialled in and they have five big hitters back from Europe.
They will be strengthened immeasurably by the return to action of Bismarck du Plessis, Francois Steyn, Willie le Roux, Duane Vermeulen and Sale Sharks razor- sharp scrum- half Faf de Klerk, who I rate very highly. For many it feels like the end of the season but England cannot clock off yet, the most difficult three Tests are yet to come. I’ve been following this row about the number of serious injuries being incurred by players while training with England. Bath top the list with five during Jones’s reign and, understandably, t hey are not amused, with their owner Bruce Craig making his view known.
It is being portrayed by some as a club v country row but the truth is both have the same needs. If you are the England coach then what you are looking for is to have all your best players available all of the time. That means you monitor their fitness microscopically. It’s amazing how good a coach you become when all your best players
are fit. Yes of course there will be freak injuries in games and training, but those that can be avoided, must be avoided.
My fitness coach Dave Reddin — the best in the business by some distance — would report back almost by the hour, let alone every morning. If a player was showing any sign of fatigue, stress, illness or just lacked the condition to undertake the training we needed from him, he would be withdrawn immediately and would not participate again until he was good to go.
Dave’s expertise and input was priceless and it was not luck that saw us picking from a fullstrength squad for the 2003 World Cup final. If a player arrived without the condition to play Test rugby he would be put on a bespoke fitness programme of his own supervised by Dave and would not join group training — and in particular the contact training — until he was up to speed.
Which brings me to the most important point. It is not Craig, or any club owner, who should talk to Jones. If a club coach was overseeing sessions that logged up this number of injuries, he would be called in by his director of rugby for a ‘ chat’ one Monday morning. Alas there is nobody at the RFU with the authority to do that and there never has been.