Jones tests boundaries
EDDIE JONES likes his cricket analogies, and it is fair to say that at the moment England’s head coach finds himself on a sticky dog.
After two years of batting on a shirtfront with England, the storm clouds of the past three weeks have left the Australian dealing with some unwelcome water on an uncovered wicket.
A toxic combination of successive defeats and some unwise sledging of England’s opponents has left Jones in the most uncomfortable position of his tenure.
The response of England’s head coach yesterday was a mix of defence and attack. The defensive stuff came in dutifully reiterating his apology to Ireland for calling them “scummy” and describing Wales as a “s **** y little place” and accepting he may have to row back on the lucrative business speeches in the future. The attack came in ripping up his team to face the Irish tomorrow with the most breathtaking selection of his time with England. Play a few shots on a sticky wicket and it can go one of two ways.
If they come off and Ireland are defeated then the party line that the away losses will turn out merely to have been useful learning exercises ahead of next year’s World Cup will carry some weight.
If his calculated gamble backfires though, England will appear to all intents and purposes to be a side that is unravelling.
“My focus has been purely on preparing this team well. If other things have happened, which they obviously have, then I’ll let those fly past and concentrate on what I have to do,” said Jones.
“We’ve had a good preparation this week – I’ve liked the response of the players. The other situation; I’ve addressed that, I’ve apologised for it and I can’t do anything about that now. All these periods are sent to test you and you learn from them and become a stronger team. I’ve had plenty of them.
“At the Brumbies we lost the first three games one season. With South Africa in 2007, we lost three of the four Tri-Nations games before the World Cup. When I was with Australia we got beaten by 50 points by New Zealand, six months before the World Cup.
“I love it mate, this is what we get paid for as coaches. It’s the best time in rugby when you’re under the pump and you’ve got to produce, and the team feels the same way.
“They’re good characters and the team’s up for the fight. That’s what I’ve sensed this week. No one’s dropped their bundles. Guys are disappointed their role in the team’s changed and that’s natural – I’d be disappointed if they weren’t disappointed. But we have a chance on Saturday to play a really good game of rugby. We need a good game.”
Jones’s take on his remarks are that they will not act as an accelerant to the pesky ‘scumbags’ in green who now happen to be ranked above his England side.
The motivation of a Grand Slam will be much more relevant to them, he claimed – a view echoed by Ireland’s Tadhg Furlong yesterday. “If we’re looking for outside influences to give us a good fire up to play the game, we’re probably not in a great place. It’s out there. We’ll concentrate on our gig,” said the Lions prop.
Ireland were more unimpressed by the appearance of assistant referee Marius van der Westhuizen at England training this week. “That is a bit of a surprise,” said coach Joe Schmidt. “I know Marius, I
I love it mate, this is what we get paid for
would have no hesitation in standing by his integrity. I don’t think it will affect his decisionmaking – we still have faith in him as an official on Saturday – but in retrospect people may think it wasn’t the best thing to do.”
World Rugby certainly agree, even if they agreed to the plan, and have stood down Van der Westhuizen and replaced him with Nigel Owens tomorrow. “Marius should not have been involved given that he was a member of the match official team for the weekend’s match,” the sport’s governing body said in a statement while also accepting responsibility for what it called an “oversight”. World Rugby said they took the decision “to avoid any additional unfair and unnecessary conjecture”.
“Marius is an outstanding talent with a big international future and both he and his employer the South African RU fully support the decision,” the statement added.
Meanwhile, whatever the misjudged spirit in which Jones’s comments were intended, they serve no positive purpose whatsoever for a side trying to stop a deeply disappointing Six Nations turning into a car-crash campaign.
“We want to fix the last two games,” said George Kruis. “We definitely owe it to the group to leave the shirt in a good place for the summer tour.”
The Saracens second row will be a significant figure given the mess Ireland made of England’s line-out in the corresponding fixture last season.
That was game one in Ireland’s current unbeaten run of 11, a sequence which propels them towards Twickenham in confident mood.
What was expected to be a Grand Slam shootout has turned out to a St Patrick’s parade. For Ireland, already Six Nations champions, this is their appointment with history.