Bath boss on thin ice when he raps Eddie
“It is an intriguing stance from the owner of a club who have had one of the most extensive injury lists in the Premiership”
IN two and a half years of England training sessions under Eddie Jones as intense as any generation of Red Rose players has experienced, there have been four serious leg injuries, one of them career-ending.
The severe leg and ankle injuries that eventually forced Wasps flanker Sam Jones to retire were sustained in 2016 during a judo bout with Maro Itoje. The other three were knee injuries, incurring ligament damage requiring surgery, which take approximately nine months to recover from.
Two of them happened to Bath players, with loose-head prop Beno Obano the latest casualty after being injured in the Brighton training camp a fortnight ago. He was preceded by young lock Tom Ellis last year. The other was to another Wasps player, with hooker Tommy Taylor having only recently recovered from the injury he suffered this time last year.
There have been another 11 injuries in England training, making 15 in all, but not of the same severity or demanding the same recovery time.
Whether that is an unacceptable figure is at least debatable, and can only be assessed properly if it is compared with the level of injuries incurred in other international camps, and in professional club training.
The claim that it is two-anda-half times higher than club training injuries certainly merits careful scrutiny.
Yet, Premiership Rugby this week decided to escalate a growing club versus country row by saying through their chief executive, Mark McCafferty, that the league had ‘hit a roadblock’ in their relationship with the England coach.
A growing sign of the times, and an unwelcome one, is that rather than announcing this at an openly advertised Press conference, Premiership Rugby invited less than a handful of journalists.
The precursor to this rare Premiership Rugby Press conference was the Bath owner, Bruce Craig, making a public criticism of Jones' training methods. The injury to Obano was an one too many for Craig, who has a reputation for being one of the most hands-on proprietors in the Premiership.
He said that the quantity of England training injuries is ‘totally unacceptable’. Craig asked: “What is going on in the camp? There is obviously an issue because of the number of injuries. There has got to be significant questions asked about duty of care... I am unsure of whether the players are being taken to levels that are unacceptable.”
Craig also claimed that Bath do not have cruciate ligament injuries in training, which must make them a rarity among rugby clubs.
Jones responded sharply: “We prepare players for Test matches. I don’t think anyone at a club has the right to tell a coach how to train a Test team. I haven’t seen any fig ures to suggest they are (unacceptable), and no-one in our staff has suggested they are. But Bruce is obviously an expert in training ground injuries, so I’ll have to be subservient to his greater knowledge.”
Craig then issued a statement saying: “Mr Jones’ cynical remarks on an important player welfare issue are inappropriate.” The Bath owner described all the injuries in England training under Jones as ‘serious’ and said that the matter would be taken to the Professional Game Board – on which he sits – and added that clubs would have input into what is acceptable when they are in England camp.
Craig then raised the spectre of club players not being centrally contracted to the RFU, and being released ‘in good faith’ on the understanding they will be treated reasonably.
This is an intriguing stance from the owner of a club who this season have had one of the most extensive injury lists in the Premiership. Bath’s front row injuries alone could fill a pack, with Henry Thomas, Ross Batty, Max Lahiff, Nathan Catt, Kane Palmer-Newport, Anthony Perenise, Shaun Knight, Jack Walker and Nick Auterac all on the sidelines for significant periods. None of them were incurred on England duty.
In fact, the Bath injury list in the course of this campaign is almost endless. Jonathan Joseph (ankle, not on England duty), Anthony Watson (Achilles, playing for England), Sam Underhill, Semesa Rokoduguni, Francois Louw, Matt Garvey, Tom Homer and Luke Charteris.
It has been so extensive that some former Bath legends have questioned, tongue-incheek, whether the sumptuous training facilities installed at Farleigh House by Craig are preparing the squad adequately for the bruising business of pro rugby.
There are statistics being bandied about that some Premiership clubs limit contact training to 30 minutes a week, which seems very little in a full contact sport like Rugby Union.
By contrast, Jones favours wrestling and judo drills and contact bouts as part of England training, and says it is something he has done with every team he has coached.
Despite England’s current nosedive, those methods were good enough to underpin a 17match winning run under Jones, and there were no complaints then.
Is Jones right about his training methods, or is Craig right to complain and threaten new club v country strife? Only forensic analysis of training methods and injuries at England, and Bath, will tell us. The PGB have plenty of work to do.