Eddie on mission to bring back the grunt up front

WHATEVER happened to England’s forward power – the rock-like scrum, and unstoppable driving mauls that used to be meat-and-drink to red rose packs like the 2003 world champions?

Happily, I can reveal that Eddie Jones is on a mission to get that setpiece armoury back in pristine working order, because he is sees it as non-negotiable if England are to become world champions again in 2019. The England head coach told me: “As an Australian one of the most disappointing things in the Premiership is that a lot of that old-style English forward play has been lost. That is one of the things we have to get back – that real grunt in our forward play, because there is still a place for it.

“We couldn’t get our maul going against Ireland until the second half – and when it’s wet and greasy you have to get it going at the start of the game.”

Jones explained: “We have to have an absolutely impeccable set piece, so that every game we know that our scrum, line-out and restarts are going to be good. To play any sort of attacking game your set piece has got to be good.”

He added that there is a misconception about the foundations underpinning New Zealand’s excellence: “People say it’s because they can pass 20 to 30 metres running fast, but that’s not it. The reason New Zealand have gone from a 70 per cent to a 90 per cent winning team is the improvement in their scrum and lineout. So, getting our set piece right is crucial to everything.”

The question is, why did England ever lose sight of those fundamentals in the period that followed the 2003 peak, forcing Jones to have to fix it?