AS IT FELL APART VENEER OF SUPER -COACH EDDIE ‘There’s such a negative attitude. I find it incredible’
There was nothing Jones could say to explain it
It was something Martin Johnson said that resonated most powerfully around Yokohama on saturday night. a quote he had borrowed from heavyweight champion Mike tyson. ‘Everyone has a plan,’ tyson said, ‘until they get punched in the mouth.’
tyson was speaking in his heyday, before a fight against a difficult opponent. Lots of lateral movement, lots of speed, lots of dancing had been promised. tyson was being told about all the tricky manoeuvres this challenger had in store. that was his reply.
Later in his career, he expanded on it. ‘If you’re good and your plan is working, somewhere you’re also going to get the wrath,’ he explained. ‘Let’s see how you deal with that. Normally people don’t deal with it too well.’
tyson would have recognised this outcome as what befell England’s players on saturday. they got punched in the mouth — metaphorically, because south africa were nothing less than fair — and they froze.
Losing Kyle sinckler so early was a significant blow, too, but it should not have thrown them through a loop as it did. Eddie Jones always talked about his finishers as if they were a match for his starters, perhaps even better. sinckler’s injury exposed the reality. Dan Cole came on and England’s scrum got monstered. as the game moved away from England, the coach threw on finisher after finisher — with the exception of Joe Marler, each less effective than the last.
Ben spencer’s briefest of cameos when the game was lost suggested he was not tournament-ready, given scrum-half Ben Youngs was turning in one of his most erratic displays in recent memory. and as it all fell apart, with it went the fragile veneer of the super-coach.
as brilliant as Jones was considered to have been against New Zealand, so he was ineffectual here. Choker-hama, one newspaper tagged it. the game got away from them all and in the aftermath there was nothing Jones could do to explain it. again.
He does this sometimes. One moment he’s the man with all the answers, the next he’s utterly powerless against the vagaries of professional sport. and, yes, we know, flesh and blood creatures do not have the reliability of machines. they panic, they fear.
a jet’s on-board computer is brilliant but it does not know or imagine the human consequence of crashing into the sea; the pilot does. Yet gun coaches are employed to solve these problems, just as Jones assured everyone he could fix England’s mental failings in March.
that was the day his team went from 31-0 up to 38-31 down against scotland, starting nine of the same
XV who faced the springboks. and while the scoreboard was fairly consistent throughout the final — south africa never worse than level, and even then only for 17 minutes of 80 — the drop in performance saturday to saturday was every bit as dramatic as the Calcutta Cup collapse. Jones’s exhortations to look on the bright side seemed rather hollow in the circumstances. England were looking for a man with answers. Instead, like his scrum, he was back-pedalling. ‘I’ve been coaching 23 years, it happens periodically every time,’ said not-quite-so-Fast Eddie. ‘You think you’ve got a team right and ready to go and for some reason they don’t perform to the level you expect. why, I don’t know. I’ve spoken to a lot of experienced coaches about it and everyone says the same thing. You just don’t know. You’re better off putting that game aside and getting on with it.’
Do you think it was the occasion? ‘OK, you write that.’
But we’re asking you?
‘You’re the clever guy, you write it. I think I’ve just answered it mate, haven’t I answered it?’
Well, you said you didn’t know.
‘I don’t know. what do you want me to say? I don’t know. If I knew I’d be able to fix it, and I wasn’t able to fix it.’
When it’s happened before, do you ever get an answer, maybe some time later?
‘No, I don’t think you do. a lot of the time you don’t work it out because it just happens.
‘we’ve had a great run, we’ve played good rugby, we got caught in a couple of areas today and we couldn’t get out of them — for instance, the scrum — and it trickled down through the rest of the game and affects the team. then we’re struggling to get on the front foot.
‘the game today is about getting on the front foot and we couldn’t. If you can’t do that you look like a team who lacks ideas, lacks energy, looks tired, all those things. the reality is something slightly wasn’t right and we couldn’t fix it on the field. that happens.’
and then the frustration of impotence came out.
‘I’m disappointed there’s such a negative attitude about our performance,’ said Jones. ‘we’ve just taken a team that couldn’t get out of the pools and got beaten in the final, and there’s all this negativity. I find it incredible, guys. we weren’t good enough today. so sorry, I apologise. what do you want me to say? tell me what you want me to say. we are the second best team in the world.
‘there are 18 other teams wishing they were here in the final and had got beaten. we finished ahead of