Eddie must wield scalpel on his ailing forwards
NICK CAIN looks at the problems facing England’s head coach before the showdown with France
EDDIE Jones did not enjoy his train journey to Manchester with a bunch of sozzled Scots yobs last Sunday morning, but the ride could get even more uncomfortable over the next fortnight.
Although the England coach’s demeanour has been of the “keep calm and carry on” variety, he will be more aware than anyone that his showcase won-24-from-26 record could be reduced to rubble over the next fortnight with difficult assignments to come against France in Paris and the high-flying Irish at Twickenham.
That is because Scotland took a hammer-drill to England’s confidence – and possibly that of their Aussie coach – last weekend with the comprehensive manner of the 25-13 defeat.
England have lost twice in their last nine internationals under Jones, and if their opponents require a template of how to expose England’s hitherto well-concealed shortcomings, then Scotland coach Gregor Townsend delivered it.
In doing so Townsend followed in the footsteps of Ireland’s Joe Schmidt, whose side not only trashed England hopes of a second successive Grand Slam in Dublin last March, but proved that pressure defence could deny them a single try-scoring opportunity.
Scotland’s victory also highlighted other pressure points. The most notable is that if England are drawn into a high-speed game in which their forwards are outmanoeuvred, and knocked onto the back foot, they are vulnerable. Under that sort of duress England’s defensive pattern goes from an effective press to having as many holes as a slice of Emmental.
However, what is more concerning is that Jones struck a surprisingly low-key note this week. The usual defiance was missing and he sounded world-weary as he elaborated on his options ahead of the task facing England in Paris on Saturday.
Asked if he might fast-track Jack Willis, the young Wasps flanker whose impressive turn-over technique and ball-carrying has earned him plaudits in the Premiership, Jones said: “We are always assessing (players) to see if there is anyone better than what we’ve got at the moment. But they are going to have to have experience, and they are going to have to be able to come up to Test match quality quickly. So we are looking at that.
“We are appraising all the players who are available for England, (but) there are not too many outside the squad. That’s the reality. We have guys like Denny Solomona, Marcus Smith and (Zach) Mercer, those young guys, and we are looking at them carefully
“Jones is not convinced about the depth of international players in the Premiership”
to see how quickly they mature.”
It does not take sleuth-like powers of deduction to work out that first, Jones is not convinced about the depth of international-quality players in the Premiership, and second, he believes that he has tapped in to nearly all of what’s available. Third, he is doubtful that any new recruit has the time to go from promising to prototype world champion by 2019.
What has been so impressive about Jones until now is the exacting standards he expects of himself and everybody else – and yet there is an inescapable sense that he is not sure he can raise his game on the selection front. His rationale seems to be that he simply does not have players with world champion DNA available to him.
I disagree strongly. England have a depth of talent that only New Zealand and South Africa can match. The Red Rose coach has players three-deep in every position, and the bedrock of a Saracens side which have won the European Cup for the last two seasons. He also has a reservoir of junior world champions, with England winning the World Rugby U20 title in 2013, 2014 and 2016.
The issue is that, because of his success, he has become mired in a very conservative selection strategy. It is almost as if he has started selecting to defend his winning record, allowing it to become an impediment which has excluded a blending of new talent and an experienced core to provide England’s lift-off to world champion status.
There is nothing likely to get Jones’ competitive juices bubbling more than comparing him with a rival coach, and his biggest rival in this Six Nations is Schmidt. A comparison of the two shows that the Kiwi in charge of Ireland is the more adventurous selector.
While Jones has played safe with “phase 2” of his World Cup preparation, making precious few changes, Schmidt has trusted the young talent in his squad to deliver on the big stage. Where the England starting side against Scotland contained eight players from Stuart Lancaster’s line-up for the 2015 pool defeat by Australia – with four more Lancaster regulars in Jones’ 23 – Schmidt has undertaken a genuine
rebuild. The Irish side that beat Wales included new blood such as wing Jacob Stockdale, centres Chris Farrell and Bundi Akee, tight-head Andrew Porter, lock James Ryan, and flanker Dan Leavy. If you add No.8 CJ Stander, and the injured cohort of tight-head Tadhg Furlong, openside Josh Van Der Flier, and centre Garry Ringrose to the newcomers since the last World Cup – along with those on the bench pushing for places like fly-half Joey Carbery, winger Jordan Larmour, lock Quin Roux, tight-head John Ryan and back rower Jack Conan – there are 15 new names.
By comparison the England changes under Jones are very limited. Maro Itoje has become a regular starter in the pack, and Elliot Daly has come into the backline. Outside that Jamie George and Ben Te’o have become bench regulars, and have been joined this season by Harry Williams, while flankers Sam Simmonds and Sam Underhill have won a grand total of 11 caps between them – mostly off the bench.
The best place for Jones to start his implementation of phase 2 is with the England pack, because the current crew do not look like potential World Cup winners. They struggled to keep
the Welsh forwards in check, and they were a distant second to the Scots everywhere other than the scrum – and even there it was stalemate rather that superiority.
The England pack was so static and stodgy against the Scots that it looked as if it had been tranquillised. The disparity at the breakdown in the speed, technique and effectiveness of the competing back rows was well documented last weekend – and, hopefully, the Luddites in the English game who have been advocating sticking big lumps at openside for the last 15 years will finally take the blinkers off.
Of greater concern was England’s lack of set-piece clout, especially with the French next. If Jones had a Red Rose pack that was grindingly formidable at the set-piece – as they have been traditionally – they would at the option of playing a power/territory game.
Instead, for the past 18 months England have achieved parity up front, and it's been their ability to play a varied game with accurate passing and kicking, and clinical finishing, that has taken them to second in the world rankings. French coach Jacques Brunel knows his side’s limitations, but physicality is not one of them. He also knows the England forwards can be unsettled and outplayed at the setpiece and in the loose after seeing them mugged by the Scots.
That’s why the Red Rose men can expect a full-frontal French assault. Destructive tight-head Rabah Slimani will try to loosen the bolts between the English loose-head and hooker so that the visiting scrum is on skates, and the French will also fancy their chances of using their driving maul to smash over as they did against Italy.
Guilhem Guirado and company are not going to fret unduly about the English line-out drive given the way the Scots neutered it by hanging off before hitting in numbers and driving-in low. The French back row of Yacouba Camara, Wenceslas Lauret and No.8 Marco Tauleigne may not be as adept at turn-overs as the Scots, but it is more mobile than the English trio Jones picked at Murrayfield, and faster getting to the breakdown and carrying round the corner.
This brings us to athleticism, and another negative comment from Jones about his team’s ability to play a high-tempo game like Scotland, and their mentors, New Zealand. The England coach, who has said throughout his tenure that he intends to make his team the fittest in world, said suddenly that he would not consider a change in style because his team were not up to speed when it comes to playing “pattern football”.
Jones said: “We can’t win that way. We don’t have the athletic ability to do it. I have them for 13 weeks a year. I can’t suddenly make them more athletic. All I can do is try to maximise the players we have. We don’t have the ability to be athletically better than other teams.”
To suggest that Jonny May, Anthony Watson, Sam Simmonds, Maro Itoje, Elliot Daly, Jonathan Joseph, Danny Care, Sam Underhill, George Kruis, Kyle Sinckler and Ellis Genge don’t have the athletic ability to go toeto-toe with England’s rivals makes no sense. The same applies to other players Jones has not admitted to the inner sanctum like Don Armand, Luke Cowan-Dickie, Alec Hepburn, James Chisholm, Jonny Hill, Dan Robson, Ben Spencer, Henry Trinder and Olly Woodburn.
Instead, Jones has pinned his hopes on players who going back to 2015 – and before that – have stumbled when the hurdles get bigger and the pressure mounts.
He will almost certainly give the senior forwards who were found wanting in Edinburgh a chance to redeem themselves against the French.
Jones is in danger of turning them into sacred cows. Fortune favours the brave, and with a 2018 Grand Slam gone and a 2019 World Cup to win the England coach should shake up selection by dropping Dylan Hartley, Dan Cole and Joe Launchbury. He could also bench, or rest, Chris Robshaw, Mako Vunipola and Courtney Lawes, with the last two looking as if the Lions tour has caught up with them.
If Jones wants more dynamism, urgency, athleticism and speed, he should promote his bench to the front rank and give Joe Marler (to combat Slimani), Jamie George, Harry Williams, Maro Itoje, George Kruis, Don Armand, Sam Underhill and Nathan Hughes the chance to put down a marker against the French.
It is time for Jones to turn the page.
“England’s pack was so static against the Scots it looked as if it had been tranquillised”