Now Eddie must blood his reserves against Japan
ONE of the biggest challenges for a bloke who comes from a country where you can write the names of every potential international player on the back of a postage stamp is how to deal with an avalanche of selection options.
The bloke in question is Eddie Jones, and the challenge he faces in selecting an England side to play Japan on Saturday in the third Autumn international is to start making a coherent fist of his third and fourth choice options. If he makes a start against a Japan outfit currently 11th in the World Rugby rankings then at least the Twickenham crowd can look forward to a contest that is worth the admission price.
Teams that win World Cups are those with players who can slot in seamlessly when the injury scourge hits hardest. At this juncture, although Jones has talked a good game about wanting a squad four deep in every position, the way he has hopscotched from one player to another in his long squads suggests he has not yet marshalled his resources to best effect.
This is not entirely surprising when you consider that England’s head coach was born, raised and learned his coaching trade in Australia, which has the thinnest layer of elite players of any leading Rugby Union nation.
It may explain why at times during his three years in charge of England, Jones has been like a kid who for the first time goes from his local corner shop – where there are only a couple of varieties of sweets – into a giant sweet emporium where there are hundreds. In danger of being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of choice he reverts to what he knows best, picking only the sweets which are familiar.
This has applied especially to his selection of his Test match squads, which have remained set in tablets of stone until this autumn, when he has dropped stalwarts like Mike Brown, Dan Cole and James Haskell. Yet, outside his core of starters the approach taken by Jones to those not in the inner sanctum has been more scatter-gun than carefully aimed.
Those in the selection sights one minute and out of it the next include international hands like Danny Cipriani, Semesa Rokoduguni, Luke Cowan-Dickie, Tom Wood, Don Armand, Henry Thomas, Teimana Harrison, Ben Morgan, Dave Attwood and Denny Solomona.
It also includes pack hopefuls like front rowers Jack Singleton, Tom Dunn, Tommy Taylor, Paul Hill, Beno Obano, Tim Collier, Kieran Brookes, and Lewis Boyce, locks like Will Spencer and Mike Williams, and aspiring back rowers from Michael Rhodes and Dave Ewers at the gnarled end to fresh faces like Ben Earl, Ben Curry, Nick Isiekwe, Tom Ellis and Will Evans.
The same spectrum exists in the backline with young guns like Jack Maunder, Ben Vellacott, Marcus Smith, Joe Marchant, Joe Cokanasiga, Nathan Earle, Harry Mallinder and Cameron Redpath called in alongside seasoned operators like Dan Robson, Ben Spencer, Piers Francis, Henry Trinder and Ollie Devoto.
My hunch is that since the Saxons have been mothballed, with Jones not registering any significant protest, the England coach does not have a clear pecking order established among either the 40 plus names above, or from a significant number of further Testquality players he has at his disposal.
By contrast, the New Zealand ‘A’ team which beat Japan 69-31 in Yokohama last weekend appeared to have a well-defined succession plan underpinning it.
That is why it is important for Jones to start getting his reserve ducks in a row when he selects his side to take on Japan. He will be understandably wary of giving a lively Japanese side under the tutelage of the former All Black back row Jamie Joseph a sniff, especially given the hammering that Pat Lam’s Barbarians gave an England XV at the end of last season, compounding their Six Nations woes.
It is a calculated risk, but if England are going to have any chance of winning the World Cup it is one that they have to believe they can cover. New Zealand beat Japan by almost 40 points in a match in which they scored ten tries to five. That margin illustrated New Zealand’s command, as did the fact that the Japanese never got closer to them than ten points, and then only for a couple of minutes.
The reality, for all Japan’s backline zip, is that the All Black second string were never stretched, and the result was more of a formality than a match in the balance. All the more reason why Jones, who knows Japan inside-out, should be prepared to gamble more than Steve Hansen did by putting players at the deep end of his player pool to the test against them.
No one, least of all the paying public at Twickenham, wants to see a ‘you score one, we’ll score two’ procession. They want to see a red raw boxoffice contest – which is what any international match has to be.
The Test currency has been devalued by too many cricket score encounters, which while they are not pointless on the scoreboard are pointless in virtually every other respect. England can do the game a favour by Jones picking a team from those he still has question marks over, and needs to be convinced by, irrespective of whether they are young or old. Jones has said more than once that his mission is to ignite the interest of the fans, and this is his chance to do so. If he requires a selection yardstick, then he need look no further than Ben Moon for his inspiration. The Exeter loose-head was nowhere near any of Jones’ squads over the last three seasons despite being one of the most consistent, durable props in the Premiership. Yet, with Mako Vunipola and Ellis Genge injured, and Joe Marler opting for premature international retirement, Moon stepped into the