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England assistant reckons losing to Scotland 'could be good for us'

By Liam Heagney
(Photo by Dan Mullan/The RFU Collection via Getty Images)

New England attack coach Martin Gleeson has suggested that last weekend’s round one Guinness Six Nations defeat to Scotland could eventually be seen as a positive for Eddie Jones’ side. Having drawn a line in the sand following last season’s derisory fifth-place finish, the head coach has since overhauled his coaching staff and has revamped his player roster by bringing in numerous new faces into the set-up. 

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Fout of those newcomers from last July’s summer series will start against Italy this Sunday – Freddie Steward, Marcus Smith, Harry Randall and Alex Dombrandt – a contest they go into off the back of tasting a first Test level defeat last weekend in Edinburgh.  

Steward and Smith were starters at Murrayfield, with Dombrandt coming off a bench where Randall was an unused sub. Losing at international level was a new experience for them and it was the same for Jones’ new staff, the trio of attack coach Gleeson, defence coach Anthony Seibold and forwards coach Richard Cockerill who all came on board for the hat-trick of Autumn Nations Series successes.    

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No one ever likes to lose but for a new group, it could ultimately prove to be a tonic. At least that is what Gleeson, an England recruit from Wasps after a lifetime before that in rugby league, is banking on. “You learn,  you figure things out and you think can we get better,” he said from Rome ahead of Sunday’s round two match. 

“You probably learn more in a defeat than you do in a victory, In the long run, it could be good for us but there was a lot of learnings from that and a lot of things to take going forward into this week.” Asked to elaborate on what those learnings were specifically when it came to attacking coach remit, he said: “A couple, yeah. Well, we hopefully will get to see that tomorrow [Sunday].”

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Much will likely depend on how Marcus Smith functions this week with an eight/nine combination of Alex Dombrandt and Harry Randall compared to last week’s starters, Sam Simmonds and Ben Youngs. 

“Harry will bring some tempo and he will bring some speed and we are looking forward to seeing him link up with Marcus. In training, they have built up their combination and then we will go with experience coming off the bench. We want a fast start against Italy with the nine/ten and with Alex coming in for the familiarity with Marcus, we are excited to see what that can bring us.

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“We want to play a high tempo game, we want to play fast when we are in the right areas and we want to take our opportunities. We want to get excited about the game, we want to get excited about the opportunities that will present themselves against Italy.” 

It was approaching noon on Saturday when Gleeson spoke at a virtually held media briefing from the England team hotel. “We just walked through what we needed to walk through. Everyone is fit and ready to go tomorrow. The weather’s beautiful.

“We haven’t been to the stadium yet, we only got in late last night. We just went for a little bit of a walk down to where we did our captain’s run, stopped off at a coffee shop on the way back and here I am, so we have not really ventured out anywhere yet.

“There was a lot of positives in the Scotland game. Some of the set-piece work and some of our kick returns to get in some good areas was really good, some bits off the back of that we missed opportunities. We know that as staff and players and we just want to get better as a group and the team selected this week is the team we feel is best suited to face Italy. 

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You want to be ruthless when you get in positions to create opportunities and then post points and put your foot on the floor of the opposition. We certainly want to do that and we think we can do that better.”

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Bull Shark 3 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

Of the rugby I’ve born witness to in my lifetime - 1990 to date - I recognize great players throughout those years. But I have no doubt the game and the players are on average better today. So I doubt going back further is going to prove me wrong. The technical components of the game, set pieces, scrums, kicks, kicks at goal. And in general tactics employed are far more efficient, accurate and polished. Professional athletes that have invested countless hours on being accurate. There is one nation though that may be fairly competitive in any era - and that for me is the all blacks. And New Zealand players in general. NZ produces startling athletes who have fantastic ball skills. And then the odd phenomenon like Brooke. Lomu. Mcaw. Carter. Better than comparing players and teams across eras - I’ve often had this thought - that it would be very interesting to have a version of the game that is closer to its original form. What would the game look like today if the rules were rolled back. Not rules that promote safety obviously - but rules like: - a try being worth 1 point and conversion 2 points. Hence the term “try”. Earning a try at goals. Would we see more attacking play? - no lifting in the lineouts. - rucks and break down laws in general. They looked like wrestling matches in bygone eras. I wonder what a game applying 1995 rules would look like with modern players. It may be a daft exercise, but it would make for an interesting spectacle celebrating “purer” forms of the game that roll back the rules dramatically by a few versions. Would we come to learn that some of the rules/combinations of the rules we see today have actually made the game less attractive? I’d love to see an exhibition match like that.

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