Better-together England hit the bullseye with night on the oche
One of the lessons learnt by the England rugby team when they prepared for the Six Nations with a bonding night out playing darts, was not to get matched with Courtney Lawes on the oche. “That long reach, he just places the dart on the board,” Nathan Hughes, the No 8, said ruefully yesterday.
More importantly, the longrecognised value of breaking down barriers between colleagues was topical as England explained the collective spirit displayed in the dismantling of Ireland in Dublin last weekend, more of which they plan to inflict on France at Twickenham this Sunday.
Although no pictures or accounts appeared on social media at the time, the full England squad went out in London the night before they left for the 10-day presix Nations training camp in Portugal in mid-january. As head coach Eddie Jones told the BBC after the Ireland win: “They didn’t get into trouble which was fantastic… when you’ve got 30 guys going out and having a drink. They wanted to go into the camp ready to go, have some stories to tell and have some togetherness and that’s where we’re going as a team. We believe that is so important.”
Yesterday, as Jones trimmed his squad to 25 players for the French match, with Dan Cole, Ben Moon, Joe Cokanasiga and Brad Shields replacing Harry Williams, Ellis Genge, Mike Brown and the injured Maro Itoje from the corresponding group a week ago, the defence coach, John Mitchell, described his tactical system as “infectious when you get it right – it makes you more accountable because you won’t want to let your mates down.”
If it sounds like a hoary variation on the business-school mantra of “the team who plays together, stays together,” Hughes, a second-half substitute in Dublin, gave it tangible meaning. “When I went on, you could hear from the boys around you that we weren’t going to lose. Sladey [Henry Slade] scored that try in the corner, we came in and said ‘boys, are we enjoywould ing this?’ Everyone looked at Owen [Farrell, the captain] and said ‘yeah we are and let’s step it up another level and see if they can keep up with us’.”
It appears to speak to Jones smoothing the edges off a harsh regime. The Aussie has also referred to the difficulty of merging players from up to a dozen different clubs. He consulted senior players and the opinion came back that more social time together help. Slade said his highlight of the darts night was his check-out with three successive doubles when he did not quite know the numbers needed. Becoming the first Englishman to score two tries in Ireland since Will Greenwood in 2003, and England’s bonus-point win overall, was not far off the rugby equivalent of a ninedart finish.
The Exeter centre said: “We have had a real emphasis on being together on and off the field, doing stuff on our downtime, getting out in groups as four or five of us or as a squad. We didn’t tend to do that as much before.
“We had a room, played some darts, had a couple of drinks and just had a real good time. It is the best way for people to get to know each other.”
While Mitchell indicated an interest in working with England beyond the end of his current deal to the end of 2019, England’s scrum is preparing with the recall of the technically-proficient Cole and Moon to combat a heavyweight French pack with a plan to go legally low to the ground.
“Weight is an advantage but clearly there are ways around it,” said hooker Jamie George.