Four awful England takeaways that spinning Eddie Jones can't ignore
Saturday evening at Twickenham was weird. England had been hosed on the Guinness Six Nations scoreboard, the 17-point margin of defeat an all-time record low versus Ireland at home and the four-zero try count an appalling statistic for a team that was supposedly going to chase the visitors down the street and hit them with a physicality they had never encountered before.
Those threats were blarney in terms of the eventual result and yet, there was Eddie Jones beaming a red carpet Hollywood smile and telling all and sundry that this had somehow had been a “foundation” game in his plan for world dominance by the end of the 2023 World Cup in France.
It was quite the swaggering boast but his ‘new’ England palaver shouldn’t be fooling everyone. This essentially was still old England revisited. Look at the 2019 World Cup final: there was England honourably scrambling in the fight against adversity for the guts of an hour and then getting blown away in the championship-deciding minutes to lose by 20 points.
Now look at what unfolded this weekend: there was England again honourably battling a different set of odds, scrambling for the guts of another hour only to fall flat on the face again when it really mattered.
Put it another way, if Ireland went out this summer and put up a 17-point, four-try trouncing against a 14-man All Blacks in either Auckland, Wellington or Dunedin, do you think Ian Foster would be smiling and claiming this was somehow a proud step forward towards New Zealand winning the World Cup in France? Not a chance. He’d likely be run out of his job.
That really should be the discussion surrounding England after next weekend’s Six Nations finale. Is Jones genuinely the man capable of taking them all the way at the finals after another problematic Six Nations campaign? England were fifth-best last term, just two wins from five, and they are now staring at another two wins from five campaign if they don’t ambush the Grand Slam-chasing France in Paris next Saturday and ‘honourable’ losses shouldn’t count for anything in this results-based business.
If getting beaten really is worth something, the collage of super-sized media reports on a wall of the Twickenham media centre would be paying homage to these losses and not just saluting England’s greatest days with blown up big headlines such as ‘England ascend to greatness’ and ‘England give V-sign to haka before crushing All Blacks’.
Winning is the bottom line in terribly expensive pursuits such as Test rugby. That is what the RFU should be analysing if the Stade de France outcome is as negative as anticipated next week. Forget the Eddie spin. There needs to be accountability for a campaign that failed at this weekend’s ‘semi-final’ hurdle. Here are four aspects of what unfolded in London on Saturday that should be included in that post-tournament debrief:
ADMIT ATTACK IS BLUNT
It’s getting silly now, all this talk about new England attack coach Martin Gleeson honing a new style of rugby that has never been seen before. Where is the evidence four games into this tournament? We had all this similar type of talk a year ago during the Six Nations, that Simon Amor was getting England headed in the right direction and look at how that turned out, the then attack coach getting handed his P45.
Yes, the red-carding of Charlie Ewels would have had some limitations on this supposed new England attack plan but should it be limited to them making just 68 passes, 20 passes fewer than a year ago where Jones’ side was last heavily beaten by the Irish?
There was also just a single English linebreak to Ireland’s eight at Twickenham, just four offloads as well compared to eleven by the visitors. The figure that said it all, though, about England drawing their round four try blank was that of the 14 minutes and two seconds they were in possession, a meagre 16 seconds were spent on the ball inside the Irish 22.
It sounds like England very much need another ball-carrying forward in their pack, a debate that harks back to Jones’ selection of his XV. Was it correctly balanced? Sam Simmonds, with a 43-metre gain from six carries, was the leading ball-carrying forward with the sub Alex Dombrandt next-best with 24 from four.
Whatever is not happening for England in attack it has miserably left them with just two tries scored across the three big Six Nations games this year, that dart from Marcus Smith to the corner in Edinburgh after some forwards mauling and the controversial stolen lineout effort versus the Welsh when Itoje got away with some messing. Where is all this finessed Gleeson play? We’d love to know.
STOP BASHING THE REF
There have been plenty of times in recent months when Jones has quipped how he never criticises officials, even going as far as to make some fun at the expense of Rassie Erasmus whom World Rugby heavily scolded for his particular brand of referee assessment.
There was no point in Jones having a media briefing pop at Mathieu Raynal for not playing advantage when England were winning penalties at the scrum. Such was the frequency of infringement at this set-piece that the French ref gave England six penalties and a free kick to just one penalty for Ireland.
If no advantage was such a big bone of contention for Jones during the match, couldn’t he have gotten the message on via the water carriers/medics for skipper Courtney Lawes to a word when the offences were happening in real-time rather than the coach munching on sour grapes post-game?
And if advantage is a thing his team should generally be getting at a scrum penalty then why wasn’t this issue raised last Monday when England were in positive communication with World Rugby, as stated on Friday by assistant Matt Proudfoot? Spraying the ref, like Jones did after the fact on Saturday night, simply doesn’t reflect well. The toys came out of the pram.
What was encouraging, though, was that England had such dominance in the first place. Kudos to scrum coach Proudfoot. In Dublin twelve months ago, England conceded three scrum penalties and didn’t win any off Ireland with Raynal as the ref, so what unfolded here was quite a turnabout.
SORT OUT RUCK SPEED
Another little habit of Jones is to regularly chirp on about how the ruck speeds are getting generally quicker in Test rugby and how England’s tempo needs to improve. When they last played Ireland, 61.2 per cent of their rucks lasted just 0 to 3 seconds, 28.6 per cent took 3 to 6 seconds and 1.2 per cent were in excess of 6 seconds.
On Saturday those ruck speeds in possession were reputedly 66.7 per cent for 0 to 3 seconds (an improvement despite being a man down for 78 minutes), 16.7 for 3 to 6 seconds and 16.7 again for 6-plus seconds (a big disimprovement). The thing was, Ireland’s ruck speed in the 0 to 3 category was crucially way up, jumping from 65.75 per cent at the Aviva Stadium in March 2021 to 78.6 at Twickenham.
It leaves you wondering should Jones have sacrificed a winger when Ewels was red-carded in order to get Joe Launchbury into the action after two minutes? England would have instead had eight specialist forwards on the field rather than playing with seven backs and seven forwards with winger Jack Nowell packing down wherever there was a scrum.
TIGHTEN UP DEFENCE
Red cards are a rare occurrence for England, the sending-off of Ewels seemingly just their seventh ever expulsion and the first since Manu Tuilagi exited with just minutes left in the March 2020 win over Wales after he did a shoulder charge to the head of George North. But with yellow cards increasingly prevalent, you’d imagine there would a huge emphasis in training on how to adapt in defence a man short.
What are we getting at? The missed tackles chart for the Ireland game stated that just two of England’s starting XV didn’t miss a single tackle – and they only played 16 minutes between them, Ewels banished for foul play on two minutes and the injured Tom Curry playing just 14.
The remaining 13 starters collectively missed 18 tackles while the bench accounted for another nine. Was that just down to how Ireland created in attack or is there a defence strategy question to be asked of England assistant Anthony Seibold, another of Jones’ phalanx of new Six Nations staff this season?
Comments on RugbyPass
The shoulder is a “joint” with multiple bones. You don’t “fracture” a shoulder, you fracture any one or more of the bones that make up a shoulder.
2 Go to commentsOh dear, bones too suspect to continue?
2 Go to commentsBold headline considering the Canes and Blues are 1 and 2 and the Brumbies were soundly beaten by the Chiefs and Blues. Biggest surprise is Rebels 4 Crusaders 12 - no one saw that coming. If Aus are improving that’s great 👍
1 Go to commentsAnna, You are right, we need to have patience whilst the others catch up to England and France. Also it is the PWR that has been the game changer for England. the RFU put money into that initially at the expense of the Red Roses. I was sceptical at first but it has paid off in spades.
1 Go to commentsI think Matt Proctor became a 1 test AB in the same fixture. Cameron is quality and has been great this season, can’t believe’s he only 27. Realistically how would he not be selected for ABs squad this year. Only Dmac is ahead of him as a specialist 10. With Jordan out, it will come down to where and when Beauden Barrett slots back in, and where they want to play Ruben Love. Cameron seems an absolute lock in for the wider squad though. Added benefit of TJ-Cameron-Jordie combination at 9, 10, 11 too.
1 Go to commentsFarcical, to what end would someone want to pay to keep this thing going.
1 Go to commentsHavili, our best 12 by a mile, will be in the squad, if he stays fit. JB is the most overrated AB in the last 50 years.
61 Go to commentsWe had during the week twilight footy, twilight cricket, tw golf plus there was the athletics club. Then the weekend was rugby 15s plus the net ball, really busy club scene back then but so much has changed and rugby has suffered. And it was all about changing lifestyles.
6 Go to commentsIn the 70s and 80s my club ran 5 Senior sides plus a Vets. Now it is 2 sides with an occasional 3rd team. Players have difficulty getting to training now, not sure why and the commitment is not there. It seems to me more a problem of people applying themselves and not expecting to turn up and play whenever they want to.
6 Go to commentsROG’s contract is until 2027. The conversation about a successor to Galthie after RWC 2027 may be starting now. We can infer that Galthie’s reign stops then. He is throwing the Irish Coaching Job angle in because he is Irish. The next Irish coach MUST be Leo Cullen. As well as being the best coach available, coaching the vast majority of Irish Internationals week in week out, he has shown incredible skill at recruiting the best coaching staff for the job in hand. That was a failing in France. Cullen is a shrewd guy and if there is a need for foreign coaches underneath him he won’t hesitate. Rightly so. Ireland does need to start to bring Irish coaches through. Not just at the professional level but we need to train coaches to man new pathways for developing kids from schools/clubs up through the divisions.
8 Go to commentsNo Islam says it must rule where it stands Thus it is to be deleted from this planet Earth
18 Go to commentsThis team probably does not beat the ABs sadly Not sure if BPA will be available given his signing for Force but has to enter consideration. Very strong possibility of getting schooled by the AB props. Advantage AB. Rodda/Skelton would be a tasty locking combination - would love to see how they get on. Advantage Wallabies. Backrow a risk of getting out hustled and outmuscled by ABs. Will be interesting to see if the Blues feast on the Reds this weekend the way they did the Brumbies we are in big trouble at the breakdown. Great energy, running and defence but goalkicking/general kicking/passing quality in the halves bothers me enormously. SA may have won the World Cup for a lot of the tournament without a recognised goalkicker but Pollard in the final made a difference IMO. Injuries and retirements leave AB stocks a bit lighter but still stronger. 12 and 13 ABs shade it (Barret > Paisami, Ione = Ikitau, arguably) Interesting clash of styles on the wings - Corey Toole running around Caleb Clark and Caleb running over the top of Toole. Reece vs Koro probably the reverse. Pretty even IMO. 15s Kelleway = Love See advantage to ABs man for man, but we are not obviously getting slaughtered anywhere which makes a nice change. Think talent wise we are pretty even and if our cohesion and teamwork is better than the ABs then its just about doable.
11 Go to commentsCompletely agree. More friday night games would be a hit. RFU to make sure every club has a floodlit pitch. Club opens again Saturday to welcome touch / tag. Minis and youths on Sunday
6 Go to comments1.97m and 105Kg? Proportionately, probably skinnier than me at 1.82 and 82kilos. He won’t survive against the big guys at that weight.
56 Go to commentsThe value he brought to the crusaders as an assistant was equal to what he got out of being there. He reflected not only on the team culture but also the credit he attributed to the rugby community. Such experience shouldn’t be overlooked.
8 Go to commentsGood luck Aussie
11 Go to commentssmith at 9 / mounga 10 / laumape 12 / fainganuku 14
61 Go to commentsBar the injuries, it’s pretty much their top team …
2 Go to commentsDon’t disagree with much of this but it appears you forgot Rodda and Beale, who started at the Force on the weekend.
11 Go to commentsExcept for the injured Zach Gallagher this would be Saders best forward pack for the season. Blackadder needs to stay at 7, for all of Christies tackling he is not dominant and offers very little else. McNicholfullback is maybe a good option, Fihaki not really upto it, there was a reason Burke played there last year. Maybe Havilli to 2nd five McLeod to wing. Need a strong winger on 1 side to compliment Reece
1 Go to comments