Mystery that Eddie has not cut Quins boys adrift
My reaction to the England squad was a mixture of delight and disappointment.
Delight because so many of ‘yesterday’s men’ were finally missing, and there were some younger, exciting, and creative players included in their place. Disappointment because Eddie Jones hadn’t made the clean break with the past that he might have, and missed the opportunity to bring in even more of the outstanding talent that exists in the Premiership.
Brian Moore commented that there weren’t enough good English players around to fill 12 Premiership sides, but is that right? An alternative view, is that there are so many good England-qualified players around, that Eddie Jones has struggled to choose from them!
He’s been in post for two and a half years now, and if you look at his unsuccessful Six Nations squad, you have to wonder if he has relied far too much on the old guard, and possibly left it too late to blood their successors. Until now his selection policy has essentially been a conservative one, and even now the clear impression is that he has had change forced upon him rather than embracing it. Loyalty is a virtue, but not when it is over-done, and there are plenty who think that Jones has been far too loyal to long-standing internationals, and hasn’t given youth a chance.
Eddie watches all of the Premiership matches which makes some of his recent selection choices all the more inexplicable. There has to be a caveat, which is that he has forgotten more about the game than most of us have ever known, but his omission of Danny Cipriani until now is the most obvious of several examples. Similarly, there hasn’t been much support for Brad Shields to be picked before he’s even worn his Wasps jersey, but Jones has always been his own man.
If England get hammered in South Africa, which is quite possible, I don’t believe that the defence that this was a development squad will cut much ice. Rather, people could think that Jones was forced into this because he dithered about replacing players who weren’t delivering for club or country.
The biggest mystery is his picking four Harlequins players considering what a dire season they’ve just had – looking at the list of the injured and rested, there are three more Quins names there. I can understand why Exeter, Saracens and Wasps names dominate, but young players at other clubs are entitled to wonder whether there’s something in the water at the Stoop which would automatically nudge them higher up the England pecking order, or is it just the mystical TW2 postcode?
It seemed inconceivable when England were on the crest of a wave just a few months ago, but Jones might be in trouble. It isn’t just the Six Nations losses, it’s the nagging feeling that the good ship England looks a bit rudderless. There isn’t a threat to his job with the RWC just 16 months away, but doubts are emerging whether he really has a plan that can make England RWC winners. This summer tour is unusually important.
Thank goodness the Anglo-Welsh Cup has finally gone to meet its maker. There cannot have been a more unloved competition in the history of English rugby, and when the Welsh started to treat it with contempt, then any purpose it might have had finally evaporated. In its place we have – drum roll – the English Premiership Rugby Cup!
Whereas I loathed its predecessor, I feel a bit more sanguine about this version. I’m told there is a tacit understanding among the clubs that this is meant to be a development competition, although it will be interesting to see whether that holds when it come to the final!
The structure, although still weird, at least now involves playing the teams in the same pool, plus there’s going to be a ‘Derby Day’ weekend which is sure to generate interest, although some of the derbies are sure to be a tad contrived.
The question has to be how long the competition will last. When ring-fencing finally happens, as I’m sure it will, we could have a 13 or 14-team Premiership, and if that happened there just wouldn’t be the space for the Premiership Rugby Cup. I suspect this is a short-term measure designed to raise a few quid for the clubs.