Eddie's selection is muddled and full of mixed messages - Andy Goode
There have been more mixed messages from Eddie Jones this week but, regardless of what anyone else says, his team selection suggests he knows his job is safe.
Tommy Freeman, Guy Porter and Jack van Poortvliet are all very good players who have had breakthrough seasons in the Premiership. They deserve their shot and we want players to be picked on form but there’s no way Jones would be thrusting them all into the starting XV at the same time if his job was on the line.
Many people will think it should be if they lose a series to Australia on the back of consecutive poor Six Nations campaigns and some England fans will have at the back of their minds the hope that a coaching change may be made if another defeat ensues.
However, if there was a time for such a change, it would have been after either one of those past two Six Nations tournaments. Perhaps there was nobody at the RFU with the wherewithal to do it or maybe this is all part of the plan but Eddie’s latest team selection strongly indicates his position is secure.
There’s no confusion about that but there most certainly is when it comes to his discourse on this tour. He said last week that the more players played together, the more they would work well under pressure and that he hadn’t had the chance to pick a team like this for a long time.
One week on and he has broken up at least a couple of key combinations voluntarily and it’s hard to see the thinking behind his selection, especially if it’s cohesion he’s looking for.
Danny Care and Marcus Smith clearly already have a good partnership at club level but the former has been dropped to the bench and both of them are used to working in tandem with Joe Marchant, who drops out of the match day 23 altogether.
Nobody is suggesting that either Care or Marchant had the best game of their careers but how do you build that cohesion if you chop and change and go with a new-look back division that have never played together before?
It’s also easy to blame the backs but it was up front where England lost last weekend’s game and there is just one enforced change in the pack with Sam Underhill coming in for the injured Tom Curry.
The fact that Jones has picked a six-two split on the bench this time around shows he knows that but he’s obviously trusting the same personnel to up their game when it comes to the forwards.
It might benefit England for Owen Farrell to play more like a traditional number 12 rather than interchanging with Smith as much as he did and there are other adjustments that clearly need to be made in attack but that’s all unlikely to change the end result if there isn’t a marked improvement up front.
Plus, the one obvious change to be made in the backs after last week would’ve been promoting Henry Arundell to the starting XV after his eye-catching impact in the final 10 minutes but Freeman has leapfrogged him instead.
The mixed messages don’t stop with selection either. It’s not long ago that Eddie was critical of Rassie Erasmus for speaking out about referees but now he’s back talking about them and saying they try to even things up when a man is sent off.
I don’t think that was the case with James Doleman and, even if it was a fair point generally, I’m surprised World Rugby haven’t had more to say about that comment to be honest.
The mixed messages off the field do seep into how England play on the field as well and I know they want to play quite an unstructured game in attack but for the life of me I still can’t really work out what they’re trying to do.
England kicked the ball in open play just 18 times last week, which is clearly very different from what we have become accustomed to seeing from them.
Some of that is explained by the opposition and the conditions but it’ll be interesting to see if there is a different approach in this second Test. If nothing else, England could certainly have used the boot to manage the game more effectively in the second half.
I know attack coach Martin Gleeson, though, and it isn’t in his DNA to rely heavily on the kicking game so he’ll want to see his charges playing in the right areas more but I can’t see England just reverting to type and trying to bludgeon the Wallabies up front and with the boot in order to get a result.
More people than ever before have asked me this week whether Eddie will get the sack if England lose this series so there is obviously a narrative building but, while the head coach’s messaging might be muddled at times, the RFU’s stance seems pretty clear to me.
Comments on RugbyPass
Who's Jarrad Hohepa?
1 Go to commentsSo let me get this straight. Say you have the dominant scrum. You are 99% sure you can go for a scrum pushover try on the line to win the game. The opposition knows it too. They give away a silly tap kick instead. You are now not allowed to scrum. This is ridiculous! *%@ing the game up as usual! The fact that the attacking teams are not allowed to scrum from a held up over the line is just as ridiculous. Really world rugby? Careful people might start a rebel league called True Rugby or Real Rugby.
72 Go to comments12 subs during a game? How has that been allowed to happen NB? I hate when the game goes in this monopolistic direction closing up shop, it just becomes non sport. Btw have you seen anything of how Liam Coltman was tracking for Lyon? He has just signed to return to Otago though we have a couple of young hookers developing here. He was a popular gentle natured character down here and I’m glad to see him back but maybe he will be a mentor primarily?
4 Go to commentsGreat breakdown and the global politics always confuses me a little. The southern hemisphere seems to be left out a bit but I wouldn’t even know where to start with fixing it. Club challenge could be a step in the right direction
4 Go to commentsSince he coached Free state, from that time onwards, I maintained he was the coach for the Boks. A nice, no nonsense guy with an excellent brain, who gets results.
11 Go to commentswell - they only played against 14 men and had the TMO team on their side - and still should have lost… so actually that makes sense.
32 Go to commentsSouthern hemisphere Rugby is exactly that, boring. Northern Hemisphere Rugby is soooo much more entertaining and better with better players.
2 Go to commentsIf he was to be cited for a dangerous behavior, then it’s natural that he should be. Then NTamack too, yes? And I’ll add a good whataboutism - Yeandle eye-gouging on Richie Arnold: not cited. Eye-gouging. Not high tackle. Eye-gouging. It was on French TV, with French TV directors.
5 Go to commentsReally poorly written rambling piece ..
4 Go to commentsIt was so boring
2 Go to commentspersonally I’d go with : 1. France 2. NZ 3. England 4. Ireland 5. Scotland
32 Go to commentsAndy everything becomes easier with experience therefor counting etc straight after a match becomes easier when you have 100+ caps vs 17 which is the experience you speak from.
160 Go to commentsGetting rid of the Dupont Law is a good thing and ought to have been done months ago! Officially getting rid of the croc roll is a good thing. The law about no scrums from a short arm is well intended in terms of speeding the game up but it’s an overreaction to a clever yet calculated gamble that could have blow up in South Africa’s face if they conceded a penalty from the scrum that was set after Willemse took claimed the mark in the World Cup QF.
72 Go to commentsRassie The GOAT
11 Go to commentsOf their 5 big matches in RWC Scotland and NZ were the easiest. They took a 12-3 lead against NZ and after the red decided it was best to hold the lead and take chances that came. None came and it was tight but they dug a lot deeper in the other two knock out matches. They had trounced NZ in Twickenham in a fixture that NZ must now regret. Psychology was clearly with SA in the final as a result.
32 Go to commentsMy favourite line/exchanges from Chasing the Sun 2. News headline: “SA. The last hurdle in ABs World Cup glory”. Something like that. “You’re all just a hurdle. A hop, skip and a jump”. Coming from Rassie and Jacque. Basically - nobody thinks you’re going to win. You’re just a pushover team. Nobody respects you. When the camera shows the players faces, you can see the effect. You can see the rev meters (die moer metertjies) firing up. Mitchell said he felt it prior to the 19 final. He said to Eddie watching the teams warming up that it was going to be a tough day at the office. Wave a red flag in front of South African, and you can expect a reaction. This is not unique - many teams rev themselves. And Bok teams in particular. With horrific consequences (discipline, poor thinking under pressure) because that’s the drawback to using emotion right? But what this Bok team does better than many since 2007 is channel the emotion and stay on task. Despite the emotion. Why, because while Rassie might play mind games - he talks about creating a safe environment. Listen to his recent honorary doctorate acceptance speech. While he uses psychology he creates psychological safety. He’s a damn fine coach. Can’t wait for Pretoria. It’s going to be a hummer.
11 Go to commentsWhat Rassie does for SA is big. It has helped people to unite and see we can win with the right people in place.
11 Go to commentsTerrible conditions for young players to express themselves just enjoy it guys. As a saffa great to see Ausie youth looking good. Wow SA have some great talent also.
2 Go to commentsYes, another example of French tv directors ensuring that incidents like this are swiftly glossed over for the benefit of their teams…
5 Go to commentsThe prospect of the club match ups across hemispheres is surely appetising for everyone. The reality however, may prove to be slightly different. There are currently two significant driving forces that have delivered to same teams consistently to the latter champions cup stages for years now. The first of those is the yawning gap in finances, albeit delivered by different routes. In France it’s wealthy private owners operating with a higher salary cap by some distance compared to England. In Ireland it’s led by a combination of state tax relief support, private Leinster academy funding and IRFU control - the provincial budgets are not equal! This picture is not going to change anytime soon. The second factor is the EPCR competition rules. You don’t need a PhD. in advanced statistical analysis from oxbridge to see the massive advantage bestowed upon the home team through every ko round of the tournament. The SA teams will gain the opportunity for home ko ties in due course but that could actually polarise the issue even further, just look at their difficulties playing these ties in Europe and then reverse them for the opposition travelling to SA. Other than that, the picture here is unlikely to change either, with heavyweight vested interests controlling the agenda. So what does all this point to for the club world championship? Well the financial differential between the nh and sh teams is pretty clear. And the travel issues and sporting challenge for away teams are significantly exacerbated beyond those already seen in the EPCR tournaments. So while the prospect of those match ups may whet our rugby appetites, I’m very much still to be convinced the reality will live up to expectations…
4 Go to comments