Time for Jones to apply brake
MARO ITOJE claims he was bitten on his arm during the defeat in France. The alleged incident, which happened as the England lock was tackled by French flanker Yacouba Camara, has been reported to the citing commissioner.
AFTER two years of bouquets, the brickbats are coming in for England coach Eddie Jones, whose Midas touch has temporarily gone missing.
“Some people get upset by it,” he said yesterday at Pennyhill Park.
“Some people carry it around. Some people’s mothers ring them up, some people’s wives rings them up. My mother rings me up – God bless her soul. My mother said, ‘What’s going on?’ She hasn’t got a great knowledge of rugby. She just gets upset. I don’t get upset really.”
He reads widely but tends to ignore his critics’ advice until he is forced by circumstance to take it. The call-up for Exeter back-row Don Armand, who will cover No8 – most likely from the bench on Saturday – being a case in point. It comes in response to the injury pile-up that has deprived England of Billy Vunipola, Nathan Hughes and Zach Mercer.
Top-level rugby is a debilitating business – Elliot Daly was sent for a scan on a foot injury yesterday and could join Hughes and Courtney Lawes on the absentee list for the Ireland game.
In Jones’ England set-up, though, training is just as challenging, if not more so than matches. England take pride in training at levels they claim are more intense than Test matches. It is an approach that has served them well but in the unique circumstances of a post-Lions tour Six Nations it has proved self-defeating. England’s performance has declined through this championship as increasingly weary players have faded.
In both their recent defeats, England looked the less sharp side. Still though, Jones maintains there will be no change to the physical load placed upon them.
One Premiership director of rugby told me his players were “flogged” by England but while they were winning it was futile to protest. The ends justified the means. Now the means may well be compromising the ends.
Jones does not see it that way. “We were sparky for the first 20 minutes in Paris, got lost in the middle 40 and dominated the last 20,” he said.
The fact remains that England lost four players – including captain Dylan Hartley – to training injuries ahead of the France loss.
Sam Underhill having his toe trodden on might have been just ill fortune but England may well have been the authors of their own misfortune with Hartley’s calf strain, Harry Williams’s neck injury and Jack Nowell’s ankle issue.
With a week to go in a forgettable championship for England, a touch on the brake rather than accelerator would be welcome.