Maverick Jones needs win to keep doubters at bay
England out to prove they are over World Cup loss Concerns remain over coach’s team selection
England head coach Eddie Jones’s team selections are increasingly coming to resemble an old-fashioned riddle: what has five locks, three 13s, just a single wing and not one eight?
Jones’s policy of fitting square pegs in round holes forms part of the wider enigma of how an England team who reached such highs in the semi-final victory against New Zealand and away to Ireland in the Six Nations last year can fall so flat so quickly.
A dip was understandable after losing the World Cup final. Today against Ireland at Twickenham we should discover whether that hangover has worn off. Jones insists it has. So too hooker Jamie George, who said: “We’re expecting to produce a different level to what you’ve seen already in this Six Nations.” Otherwise that dip can easily become a decline.
Victory would not only keep England in the title hunt but it would also assuage many of the doubts around Jones and his selections. Defeat, meanwhile, would make the task of extending Jones’s contract, which expires in 2021, all the tougher a sell for Rugby Football chief executive Bill Sweeney.
If the high water mark of that 19-7 victory against the All Blacks seems a lifetime ago so too does Ireland’s 46-14 defeat at the hands of the same opposition. Head coach Andy Farrell has breathed fresh life into largely the same players, bringing an excitement and enthusiasm that was rarely evident under predecessor Joe Schmidt. After wins against Scotland and Wales, Ireland come to Twickenham in search of a Triple Crown as well as keeping their Grand Slam challenge on course.
That Jones released both Farrell and attack coach Mike Catt as England assistant coaches adds a further wrinkle to an already compelling list of subplots. After the obvious Farrell family feud, you have Jordan Larmour versus Elliot Daly at full-back, the battle of the finishers in Jonny May and Jacob Stockdale, the old Lions partnership of Johnny Sexton versus Owen Farrell, Kyle Sinckler versus Cian Healy up front and the experienced CJ Stander against rookie No8 Tom Curry. All utterly fascinating.
Yet no one individual contest is likely to be as decisive as that between second rows Maro Itoje and James Ryan, whose careers have followed similar almost vertical trajectories. From being standout talents in the under-20 team, they each enjoyed a seamless transition to the professional ranks, collecting Champions Cup and Grand Slam titles. Ryan started his career with an unbeaten sequence of 24 matches; Itoje enjoyed a 31game streak a couple of years prior. Even at 25 (Itoje) and 23 (Ryan), they are wunderkinds no more. Now they are talismans, setting the tone for the team’s physicality with their tackling and carrying. If they fire so does everyone else on their team. “I think they set the intensity for their teams to a large degree – Maro definitely does for us,” Jones said. “They are both massive work-rate players. And they are both destructive players and that head-tohead clash is pretty interesting.”
Itoje is among those England players who have yet to catch light in sodden conditions in Paris and Edinburgh, but Jones expects him to find top gear today. “I think he’s getting back to his best,” Jones said. “We have seen each week he has progressed. I think the World Cup took a lot out of our boys, and then having to come back and play consistently for their clubs has been difficult for them.”
There are fewer flourishes in Itoje’s game these days. He understands that his value lies more in the tight, disrupting mauls and sniffing turnovers than producing offloads in the wider channels. “My game is not about doing silky passes, or kicking the ball beautifully, or anything like that,” Itoje said. “My game is about being as energetic and physical as possible. Part of how I try and help the team is about helping to set the intensity and the attitude.”
Itoje confirmed Jones’s observation that there had been an “edge” in training this week. “It’s probably people not understanding what 60 per cent is or what 50 per cent is and they are going in at 100 per cent,” Itoje said. “That raises everything and the whole training session is 100 per cent from everyone. I think that’s good. When you see people and their attitude is right on it you can tell and get a sense the team is ready to play and the team cares about this one. The team is in a good place.”
Jones also said England’s performance in the final full training session was 60 per cent up on the corresponding session before the France match. He loves a random statistic almost as much as he loves a curveball selection.
Starting centre Jonathan Joseph at wing for the first time since he was a kid fits into that pattern, particularly against an Irish half-back combination who need no second invitation to drop high balls. So, too, the presence of five second rows in the squad and describing flanker Ben Earl as a possible wing replacement. His explanation is that 60 per cent of play is from unstructured play, making set positions redundant much of the time. Yet there is also the sense Jones tries to be too clever at times. He has always followed his hunches against received wisdom. The louder the drum bangs for a specialist No 8 such as Alex Dombrandt the greater Jones’s determination to ignore it.
Last year, Schmidt selected Robbie Henshaw, a centre, at full-back in the corresponding fixture against England. It backfired badly. Today we will discover whether Jones truly is a selectorial genius or a Victor Frankenstein needlessly patching together a team from random parts.
‘I think the World Cup took a lot out of our boys... to then be consistent at club level has been difficult’