Eddie Jones: 'We need to reset the team. It's a transition period'

[Margin__Walker]

Baxter doesn't do it for me either.

Done an amazing job at Exeter, but I really don't want to see England play like that.

I'd be okay with Richards if it went to someone local.

[SaintK]

Not convinced that Gatland is the answer to the 'lack of running rugby' concerns. Plus that many years as Wales coach...

I'd much prefer an English coach next, Deano is my genuine first choice as well as it being funny. Baxter doesn't want it I think and I don't think Exeter's style would translate brilliantly to the international game.

Outside England I'd be excited by Lam.

I do think England need an English coach. More than most teams they need someone that understands the rugby culture etc.

Lam played for Saints and was captain for a number of seasons and when they won the ERC, he's also been at Bristol a few years so should have at least a basic understanding of English rugby culture.
Comes over as an honest, humble bloke as well. I'd have no problems with him on a shortlist with Richards!

[sockwithaticket]

So, who is in the frame to replace Jones if he's sacked?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-uni ... ad-coach/
Don't think that Baxter will want ther hassle or move from the West Country or even if he's up to coaching at that level The other English coaches named aren't ready yet
Gatland or Robertson would be interesting

Would p*ss myself laughing if Jones went and Farrell snr was given the job.

I think anyone involved in the 2015 debacle would need to have a world cup win under their belt before even the RFU blazers considered them.

[fishfoodie]

Not convinced that Gatland is the answer to the 'lack of running rugby' concerns. Plus that many years as Wales coach...

I'd much prefer an English coach next, Deano is my genuine first choice as well as it being funny. Baxter doesn't want it I think and I don't think Exeter's style would translate brilliantly to the international game.

Outside England I'd be excited by Lam.

I do think England need an English coach. More than most teams they need someone that understands the rugby culture etc.

Lam played for Saints and was captain for a number of seasons and when they won the ERC, he's also been at Bristol a few years so should have at least a basic understanding of English rugby culture.
Comes over as an honest, humble bloke as well. I'd have no problems with him on a shortlist with Richards!

I don't know if International coaching would work for Lam. He's very much about developing a culture, & getting to know his players intimately. It can work on a club side; but I don't know how he'd be able to do that with 14x teams.

[JM2K6]

I do think England need an English coach. More than most teams they need someone that understands the rugby culture etc.

Lam played for Saints and was captain for a number of seasons and when they won the ERC, he's also been at Bristol a few years so should have at least a basic understanding of English rugby culture.
Comes over as an honest, humble bloke as well. I'd have no problems with him on a shortlist with Richards!

I don't know if International coaching would work for Lam. He's very much about developing a culture, & getting to know his players intimately. It can work on a club side; but I don't know how he'd be able to do that with 14x teams.

Is that not essentially what Eddie's done?

[SaintK]

Lam played for Saints and was captain for a number of seasons and when they won the ERC, he's also been at Bristol a few years so should have at least a basic understanding of English rugby culture.
Comes over as an honest, humble bloke as well. I'd have no problems with him on a shortlist with Richards!

I don't know if International coaching would work for Lam. He's very much about developing a culture, & getting to know his players intimately. It can work on a club side; but I don't know how he'd be able to do that with 14x teams.

Is that not essentially what Eddie's done?

Yes, but without the honesty and humbleness!!!

[Slick]

I don't know if International coaching would work for Lam. He's very much about developing a culture, & getting to know his players intimately. It can work on a club side; but I don't know how he'd be able to do that with 14x teams.

Is that not essentially what Eddie's done?

Yes, but without the honesty and humbleness!!!

Exactly what I was talking about, flat caps all round!

[Kawazaki]

For me, there only really a short-list of two candidates...

Scott Robertson - carries no baggage, would see the premiership players with an objective vision. Should develop a genuine elite environment that actually improves players rather than flog them, demoralise them and then send them back broken.

Dean Richards - a genuine England legend who would instantly get the respect of the fans. Won five premierships and two European cups with Leicester and got Quins and Newcastle out of the championship and playing above the sum of their parts in the premiership.




RFU "We want a Dean Ryan and Steve Borthwick dream team"

[Kawazaki]

Lam played for Saints and was captain for a number of seasons and when they won the ERC, he's also been at Bristol a few years so should have at least a basic understanding of English rugby culture.
Comes over as an honest, humble bloke as well. I'd have no problems with him on a shortlist with Richards!

I don't know if International coaching would work for Lam. He's very much about developing a culture, & getting to know his players intimately. It can work on a club side; but I don't know how he'd be able to do that with 14x teams.

Is that not essentially what Eddie's done?

Sounds more like a Stuart Lancasterism

[fishfoodie]

Lam played for Saints and was captain for a number of seasons and when they won the ERC, he's also been at Bristol a few years so should have at least a basic understanding of English rugby culture.
Comes over as an honest, humble bloke as well. I'd have no problems with him on a shortlist with Richards!

I don't know if International coaching would work for Lam. He's very much about developing a culture, & getting to know his players intimately. It can work on a club side; but I don't know how he'd be able to do that with 14x teams.

Is that not essentially what Eddie's done?

I think Eddie is more about building a Cult, rather than a culture.

[JM2K6]

I don't know if International coaching would work for Lam. He's very much about developing a culture, & getting to know his players intimately. It can work on a club side; but I don't know how he'd be able to do that with 14x teams.

Is that not essentially what Eddie's done?

I think Eddie is more about building a Cult, rather than a culture.

Hah! Well, I'm not sure there's a strong defining line there... Saracens and Exeter spring to mind!

[fishfoodie]

Is that not essentially what Eddie's done?

I think Eddie is more about building a Cult, rather than a culture.

Hah! Well, I'm not sure there's a strong defining line there... Saracens and Exeter spring to mind!

Band of Brothers reference; Eddie is Sobel; Pat is Winters

[Kawazaki]

Stuart Barnes could be my ghost writer, or maybe I could be his?

Behind paywall...

Eddie Jones is the Donald Trump of rugby, and this out-of-control ego show has England in terminal decline
Stuart Barnes
Monday March 22 2021, 12.01am, The Times

I don’t know much about the side effects of rat poison, despite Eddie Jones’s erratic claim last week that the rugby press were poisoning his team. I’d imagine they are not great, if you happen to be a rat, or indeed an England rugby player. It would have to be pretty toxic to leave England looking as groggy as they have for the best part of their international existence since the high against New Zealand in the 2019 World Cup.

It looks to me that the side are suffering more from a case of leadership out of touch with rugby reality. Jones, the head coach, rules, with his unpleasant assertions and overwhelming quest to turn the game into a funereal dirge. Donald Trump-like, he quips his offensive accusations. Just as the Republican Party’s already damaged reputation shattered during Trump’s presidency, so the image of the RFU, Jones’s employers, is taking a hit.

Jones unleashed is not funny or witty. Recent evidence suggests his verbal blasts are not relieving players of pressure. It’s an ego show out of control. While the results were good, he was bomb-proof. The RFU knows the nation will settle for the silver. England becoming “the best team in the history of rugby union” is only one of the outlandish comments he threw, post-World Cup, to the wind. Like the former United States president, the theory is that if enough rubbish is spouted, we’ll forget most of it.

Like we forgot England’s failure in the World Cup final. New Zealand in the semi-final was the start of the end. That much is clear. Either the end of Jones as England’s coach, or the end of England. At the moment he looks to be taking down the team. His prohibitively large contract is oft quoted as a reason to keep him; the RFU cannot afford to dismiss him.

So fans watch from a distance, as England’s disappointing level of performance in 2020 inevitably gives way to the defeats that follow on when a team refuses to explore the limits of its possibilities. England possess powerful forwards and highly skilled and athletic backs, but Jones has reined them in with his bunkum theory that laws and referees make what is possible for France and Wales impossible for England.

Yet only the previous Saturday England had beaten France and proved they could play with panache. George Ford forsook the ticking timebomb Jones planted in his brain for a pure pair of passing hands. England not only beat the best team in Europe, they dared to enjoy themselves.

Almost immediately Jones dismissed the thought of such a similarly ambitious effort in Dublin. The Six Nations title was long gone but Eddie informed us that what works one week (the World Cup semi-final) does not work the next (the shambles that was the final). The possibility that the preparation of the management had any part to play in the latter is utterly dismissed.

And so England put on their best Puritan hats and cloaks and decided to destroy the Irish party in the wake of their demolition of the English horse at Cheltenham — despite Jonny May saying, “If we don’t back it up [the performance against France] then I am going to be devastated, and so are the boys.”

Before the match Ford said he prefers to look up and see what’s on before the territorial kicking option. But these opinions do not chime with the brutal Jones approach to the game. The players back their coach, and he backs them; as far as selection goes. They play it the Eddie way, the only way. It would take a brave individual to tell Jones he is wrong. Caps and cash are at stake. So England tolerate a period of transition in which little to nothing is changing, either in the personnel or the style of the team.

The Australian’s idea of a rugby brain is someone who will follow a one-dimensional game plan over the edge of a cliff. His captain, Owen Farrell, has shown little flexibility in his thinking but his position is secure because he is learning on the job, according to Jones. That’s an interesting justification for his retention, considering the raison d’être for allowing youngsters such as Paolo Odogwu to stew in the squad without a sniff of match-day action. These fringe players are not being given their chance because players should not be thrown to the Test-match wolves unless they are ready. Apparently the same does not apply to captains.

Jones clings to the argument that there is a masterplan which will unfold nearer France 2023. It may be that the Australian coach is fooling the media, even as he works to keep the rat poison out of his side’s system.

Conversely, this is clever cover for keeping in contract for another couple of years. After all, didn’t England dip before rising again in the first Jones cycle? They did. And aren’t the players more experienced now than in the previous World Cup? They are. But with experience comes a mind-numbing robotic commitment to whatever Jones says.

The players love their coach. As many of the same players did Stuart Lancaster, Jones’s predecessor. As soon as he left there was criticism. Billy Vunipola thought he should have let them have a few beers before the World Cup. We did not read that until the coach had lost his job.

Be sure, if and when Jones leaves his post, there will be plenty of players prepared to tell their tales. In an unhinged rugby dictatorship, it takes a brave man to speak out. England — just watch the difference between how they play and how they speak — are, at their core, a comfortable clique. Outsiders have to work hard to break through, insiders have to be abject to lose their place. It works for Jones. Not for England.

Enough is enough. Nothing comes from nothing. And England are travelling nowhere. The cost of keeping Jones is too great a burden.

[Openside]

Are we really still saying May is world class? He’s not even the best winger at his club

I rate him very highly. Who do you think should replace him?

For England? No idea. But Watson is a far better player.

He was probably 5th/6th best winger in this years 6N, maybe even lower. No commentator I saw over the weekend had him in the Lions team, some not even in the squad. But people are still saying he is world class...

He is fast though

My take on Watson is he under delivers, he goes on what you hope is an amazing run, puts in a sidestep and falls over. I don't get all the Watson adulation I would pick May everyday over him.

[SaintK]

For me, there only really a short-list of two candidates...

Scott Robertson - carries no baggage, would see the premiership players with an objective vision. Should develop a genuine elite environment that actually improves players rather than flog them, demoralise them and then send them back broken.

Dean Richards - a genuine England legend who would instantly get the respect of the fans. Won five premierships and two European cups with Leicester and got Quins and Newcastle out of the championship and playing above the sum of their parts in the premiership.




RFU "We want a Dean Ryan and Steve Borthwick dream team"

Now that would be interesting. Would certainly need an assistant or two who know the in's and out's of the English game and potential England players

[Kawazaki]

For me, there only really a short-list of two candidates...

Scott Robertson - carries no baggage, would see the premiership players with an objective vision. Should develop a genuine elite environment that actually improves players rather than flog them, demoralise them and then send them back broken.

Dean Richards - a genuine England legend who would instantly get the respect of the fans. Won five premierships and two European cups with Leicester and got Quins and Newcastle out of the championship and playing above the sum of their parts in the premiership.




RFU "We want a Dean Ryan and Steve Borthwick dream team"

Now that would be interesting. Would certainly need an assistant or two who know the in's and out's of the English game and potential England players

Why would he need to know the ins and outs of the English game? He knows rugby, that's the yardstick. If he wanted NZ coaches to join him then let him bring who he wants, the DoRs will give him plenty of info on English rugby.

[Hal Jordan]

I rate him very highly. Who do you think should replace him?

For England? No idea. But Watson is a far better player.

He was probably 5th/6th best winger in this years 6N, maybe even lower. No commentator I saw over the weekend had him in the Lions team, some not even in the squad. But people are still saying he is world class...

He is fast though

My take on Watson is he under delivers, he goes on what you hope is an amazing run, puts in a sidestep and falls over. I don't get all the Watson adulation I would pick May everyday over him.

Watson is playing the workhorse wing in Jones' game plan, which is workhorse on one wing and the finisher on the other. Nowell used to do this, and similarly ran into traffic when getting the ball with three opposition players around him. Watson profited during the 2016 6N, for example, as the finisher.

[Openside]

For England? No idea. But Watson is a far better player.

He was probably 5th/6th best winger in this years 6N, maybe even lower. No commentator I saw over the weekend had him in the Lions team, some not even in the squad. But people are still saying he is world class...

He is fast though

My take on Watson is he under delivers, he goes on what you hope is an amazing run, puts in a sidestep and falls over. I don't get all the Watson adulation I would pick May everyday over him.

Watson is playing the workhorse wing in Jones' game plan, which is workhorse on one wing and the finisher on the other. Nowell used to do this, and similarly ran into traffic when getting the ball with three opposition players around him. Watson profited during the 2016 6N, for example, as the finisher.

Fair enough if that is the case, I don't think he is up to the role.