Eddie reaped rewards of picking a traditional lineup
“If England can keep the intensity and avoid too many injuries a Grand Slam is a distinct possibility”
As I get ready to set off to Twickenham for today’s game against France I can’t help thinking of the matches last week and what that might tell us about our chances in Japan.
Scotland’s defeat of Italy was more or less what we expected from the current side with Finn Russell calling the shots. The only concerns for Gregor Townsend were the three tries scored by Italy as his Scotland team seemed to fall asleep just when they needed to focus after Simon Berghans’ yellow in the 71st minute.
All last week’s games had good points and some bad, not least the France v Wales game where a buoyant French side showed some of their old flair to race to an early lead – only to throw it away by committing a number of unforgivable gaffs.
France, under Jacques Brunel as head coach, are heavily influenced by FFR president Bernard Laporte and are currently rebuilding their squad and have started the Six Nations with a very different team from last season.
As the last major competition before Japan you would have expected all countries to be finalising selections not experimenting with a raft of new players. It may have been the efforts to impress by these new players which saw them throw away the basic cautions teams take when it’s pouring with rain.
In conditions where the ball made a good impersonation of a bar of soap, slipping from Yoann Huget hands for George North’s first try, the French still kept throwing it, wide creating the opportunity for a second error, North’s interception that gave Wales the win.
Senior players like Louis Picamoles were seen visibly tapping their heads as an indication to his young backs to use theirs and not be so reckless, but to no avail.
Warren Gatland’s assertion that Wales have forgotten how to lose seems a little presumptuous given that they lost two games in last season’s Six Nations, making it more a case of France have forgotten how to win.
International rugby is a simple game. You get the ball and keep it till you score. If the opposition have it you stop them getting into your half where they can score and pressure them until they kick the ball back to you.
The worry for England today is that France may have learned from the mistakes they made and, given a week to think about where they went wrong, plus the promise of better weather, they may be able to keep last week’s first half form for the full 80 minutes.
That said, England’s performance in Dublin was something of a major surprise for all, not just the Irish.
I watched the game in the Box Park in Croydon on a big screen with a few hundred avid fans hoping for a miracle but not expecting one.
Although Eddie Jones said this was the first time he had been able to pick from a squad not ravished by injury, it was the first time, despite previous opportunities, he picked what could be called a traditional side.
His pack was made up of men playing in their proper positions and in their traditional roles, the front row was made up of props and a hooker, the second row with two locks and the back row with a true openside flanker, a No.8 and a blindside flanker.
The backs were also a traditional mix with just one player, Elliot Daly, playing out of position at full-back.
I doubt that many people would argue with the premise that Mike Brown is a better traditional full-back than Daly and it is probably one of the most contentious selections talked about over a pint in pubs.
Brown as a full-back is better under the high ball than Daly and probably ahead in his ability to put in an attackstopping tackle. On the other hand, Daly as an all-round player has better linking skills than Brown, as he proved in the opening minutes when putting May in for a try, but that’s not why I think Jones picks him.
The one thing that Daly has that guarantees his selection over Brown is his ability as a long range kicker. Even with the quality of Owen Farrell as the main kicker, Jones knows a close game could be decided by a player who can kick a penalty from his own half.
Overall, this was probably England’s best performance under Jones, not because they were perfect and made no mistakes, they weren’t. The team are still conceding far too many penalties, eight to Ireland’s four which, had they been in different areas of the field could have cost them the match. In fact England lost every statistical battle in the game except the one that counts, the score.
The major difference I felt was the intensity the players brought to the game from the kick off to the final whistle. England never had the usual spell in games where the opposition dominate.
It may be that John Michell has tempered the excesses of Eddie Jones and given some stability to England’s training, bringing a new focus to their game.
If England can keep that intensity and avoid too many injuries, a Grand Slam seems a distinct possibility and Japan a less distant dream.