What we learned this autumn
By Sir Clive Woodward
1 ENGLAND are still moving in the right direction and have a great coach in Eddie Jones, who is keeping everybody on their toes and, barring something unforeseen, they should be involved in a very big way at the World Cup. England will not be a team anybody wants to meet in Japan.
2 FOR all the talk of the new generation, a few of the oldies are still going strong. Chris Robshaw looks as fit and as hungry as ever. Somebody will have to play out of their skin to shift him from blindside, although obviously he helped out on the openside yesterday.
3 RUMOURS of Dylan Hartley being stood down are premature. Like Robshaw he showed up well in the Argentina and Australia games and Eddie has already said he will be captain for the Six Nations. Jamie George will be snapping at his heels, though. I would like to see Hartley complete 80 minutes.
4 IT is probably no coincidence that neither Robshaw nor Hartley went on the Lions tour. Perhaps that acted as a motivator; perhaps they benefited from the longer preseason — but like I’ve always maintained a Lions tour can be a very mixed blessing if you are one of the national coaches.
5 ENGLAND have one irreplaceable player — Owen Farrell. Let’s disregard the question of whether he plays 10 or 12, the fact is that England looked transformed, in terms of organisation and intensity behind the scrum, when he played against Australia. And although he might miss one kick at goal he rarely misses a second. Consistent goalkicking is one of the bedrocks of any topclass Test side.
6 JOE LAUNCHBURY must never be left out of the calculations when selecting the England locks, which is undoubtedly their area of greatest strength with Maro Itoje, Courtney Lawes and George Kruis right in the mix and Charlie Ewels beginning to develop. 7SAM UNDERHILL is a destructive Test tackler but we need to know what else he can do. It was a huge shame he had to depart so soon against Australia, as Michael Hooper would have given him a real examination.