Jones has England fit for purpose ahead of Murrayfield return
Jones has England fit for purpose ahead of Murrayfield return
EDDIE JONES will go back to where it all began for his England regime tomorrow — inspired by looking back at footage which showed him just how far his team have come in the last two years.
The Australian’s first game as head coach was the Calcutta Cup encounter with Scotland at Murrayfield in 2016, which the visitors won to propel them on their way to a first Grand Slam for 13 years. Ahead of the latest Red Rose mission to Edinburgh, Jones recalled the first training session he took, which left him wondering about the scale of the assignment he had accepted.
After recalling Nathan Hughes in an otherwise unchanged side for tomorrow’s NatWest Six Nations clash, he said: ‘I remember the first game. We were only together for two weeks so we only had four training runs. I remember after the first training run — I just had a look at it on video the other day — and I was thinking: “Goodness me, what have I got myself into here?”.
‘They weren’t fit. They wanted to play a system of attack, a system of defence and I thought “This is going to be hard work”. I was massively surprised how quickly they changed. It is hard for good players to change and it is a great credit to the players that they have been able to accept that they needed to change and they have done that. Now we are moving in the right direction, how quickly I don’t know, but we are moving in the right direction. And we are looking forward to this challenge.’
Asked to explain in detail exactly what he saw when he reviewed that first squad session in 2016, Jones added: ‘After 20 minutes, they were just shot. They couldn’t run any more. Not fit enough. The basics of Test rugby is physical condition. You’ve got to be fit enough to play. When you win games, as we have consistently in the last 20 minutes, part of it is fitness and part of it is tactical nous.
‘How many games have you seen the All Blacks win in the last 20 minutes? Plenty. And that’s because they practise it. We practise it now too. We’ve got the base now to be able to do that and we’re anticipating on Saturday a tough old game. It’s probably going to come down to the last 20 minutes — which team can hold their nerve, which team can execute under pressure, who’s got the stronger leadership group.’
Jones admitted that he looked back at the start of his tenure because there was a ‘nice symmetry’ about preparing for the fixture which marked his debut as the new man in charge of England. Since then, his side have won back-to-back Six Nations titles, that historic Slam and claimed a series whitewash of Australia away from home, in a spell of success only broken by defeat in Dublin last March.
The platform for that glorious purple patch, according to the architect of it all, has been the vast strides made in relation to the players’ physical conditioning.
‘We’ve been looking at a bit of data and, conservatively, we’ve improved by 40 per cent,’ he said. ‘Conservatively. And we’ve still got another 20 per cent to go.’
Jones, who was in a more conciliatory mood than usual, still had time to describe Gregor Townsend’s claims that England stretch the offside rules as a ‘sideshow’.
Townsend felt the England defensive line straying offside had been missed a lot by referees and he is set to bring up the matter with Calcutta Cup referee Nigel Owens today to outline his concerns.
But Jones said: ‘If you want to talk about the referee then let Gregor talk about that. I am concentrating on the game. That is all I am worrying about.
‘If you want to talk about those side issues and be involved in the sideshow, go and talk to Gregor. I am sure he’ll chat to you.
‘We are just concentrating on ourselves and playing the game well. We have got one of the best referees in the world in Nigel Owens. We will play the game well and he will make the decisions. If they are good decisions we will accept them, if they are not so good then we will still accept them.’
He went on to claim Scotland ‘struggled’ with the expectation in their first game against Wales but had been impressed at how they had bounced back against France.
‘They played really well against France and there were moments when they were outstanding,’ he said. ‘Greig Laidlaw also gave them very good guidance. This is a massive game. The Calcutta Cup. You don’t get any bigger than this. I remember watching as a kid growing up.
‘Look, Scotland are a very good side, we respect them and we have to be at our best to beat them.’