Don’t blame Eddie for all these injury troubles
It has been open season on Eddie Jones in recent days, and the run of 20+ consecutive England victories which led many to believe he was the new messiah seems like a long time ago. He sometimes makes it rather too easy for his critics to have a pop, but I think Jones is getting a bit of a raw deal from some.
First, I think we should ignore the loss to the Baa Baas in what was an endof-season knockabout game. They fielded a seriously strong side, and Jones was forced to put out a team that bore no resemblance to what would be England’s best starting XV – caps weren’t awarded, and that was for a good reason, so let’s not get too carried away.
The match fulfilled its primary purpose in that it raised a few quid, and gave the broadcasters some rugby to show as the dessert after the Premiership final.
We then come to the perpetual issue of players being injured on England duty. Some have reacted as if this was something new, but it isn’t. For a long time club fans have lamented the fact that ‘their’ players get crocked when they’re away with England – if it happens in a game then it’s just one of those things, but if it’s when they’re carrying a tackle bag, doing judo, or a weights session then that seems wrong.
The feeling is that England head coaches are in some way less caring because they can simply call up a replacement, whereas the clubs are the ones who bear the real impact of the losses.
It’s a tough one. On the one hand the clubs are happy to take the RFU’s money in return for renting out their players, but they’re also entitled to expect that the England coaches will look after them at least as well as they would.
Where Jones might have questions to answer is on his stated belief that the England players need to become fitter. If you watch the Premiership and Champions Cup, you might draw the conclusion that English players might do better if they were fresher and more rested, but at no point in the past couple of seasons have I thought that fitness was the issue.
The wisdom of ‘beasting’ players who’ve come through a tough Premiership season and European campaign has to be questionable, and it doesn’t seem surprising to me that some bodies break.
The demands of the English season, and what the RFU require from their international side, no longer sit comfortably together. The club and country debate refuses to go away, and the agreement reached in 2016 between the RFU and PRL already looks out of date.
The rigours of the season are such that something has to give – my view is that only larger squads will allow the necessary rest for players which will help to ease the injury toll. Both clubs and country are suffering from the effects of those injuries and it won’t be sorted by telling the head coach to go easier in training on the England players.
Jones is off to South Africa with an exciting squad of players but again it bears little resemblance to what his first-choices would be if the RWC was this September. It would be great if England could do well, but the Autumn Internationals and the Six Nations will be the real test of where England are, and it’s on those we should be judging the current England regime.
Inever cease to be amazed by rugby’s madness. Yesterday saw Wales play South Africa in, of all places, Washington DC. Warren Gatland did a half-decent job of defending the indefensible, telling us how important the trip was for Wales’ RWC preparations, and the clichés flowed: taking them out of their comfort zone, replicating climate conditions, different culture, and so on. However, when the fixture was announced in February, the First Minster of Wales made no mention of that stuff, saying simply ‘The visit is about raising the profile of Wales’.
Gatland says anyone who criticises the match must be ‘bitter and twisted’ – that’s us told! I do sometimes wonder whether he inhabits the same planet as the rest of us.
At last, something we can learn from Super Rugby. The first 2,600 fans through the turnstiles for today’s game between Brumbies and the Sunwolves in Canberra will get free sausage rolls. The Premiership needs to take note!