Stephen Jones article 23/01/22
Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2022 11:21 am
I broadly agree with all this. I know it's not fashionable to agree with Stephen Jones but the sentiment is spot on. England is not the highest rugby coaching environment in England, it's likely not even in the top-5. The disconnect between selection and merit just gets more apparent with every squad Jones names whether it's the bizarre decision to stick with Youngs and Farrell come what may or the downright obscene selection of a pitiful Bath player like Charlie Ewels.
At least admit this, England fans. Then we can crack on. England, with its mighty resources, is an underachieving rugby nation. It is wonderful in its enthusiasms but results have been for far too long, way below where they should be.
Last week’s events are unlikely to help. Eddie Jones, looking for a Six Nations squad, produced his erratic blunderbuss and took random aim at a huge flock of red rose pigeons, shot half the best and chose the squabs (baby pigeons; just call me Attenborough). Every player of the 36 appeared to have been chosen on a different principle, many of them clashing and contrary (see panel below). Now he has to go cap in hand to George Ford, a nonsensical omission, after injury to Owen Farrell, his captain.
Let’s say for a country with such raw material, that a semi-final should always be the minimum expectation at a World Cup, elimination below that is an embarrassment. England have made the semi-final or beyond only four times in the nine World Cups. In their whole existence as a rugby country, they have dominated the world only once — for a period before and during the 2003 World Cup. And what of grand slams, the rugby summit of Europe? England have won seven slams in 76 years, which is atrocious. In 2022, another is long overdue.
Last week (like most weeks) our wonderful subscribers and many other readers took fierce issue with my comments about Eddie Jones and his (increasingly bizarre) England operation. I humbly suggested whom he might name in his squad for the forthcoming Six Nations. My personal criterion for selection was simple — merit. Jones appears to shun that concept.
Opinions are free. Some in my band of supporters (I think that’s plural) insist that when recommending a player, I have probably watched him in 20 full games, and spoken to his coaches. This is the sort of background knowledge which might grant better insight than those basing it on a five-second clip they saw on their mobile phone in the clubhouse bar. On the other hand, it could easily be that those four seconds were seminal, and told you everything.
Yet conspiracy theories among the critics were rampant — myopic, useless, a weasel, a wind-up merchant. Others were really angry. There was the accusation that Welsh heritage encourages me to wish England ill every time they appear. I last lived in Wales in my schoolboy years, since then have developed a fierce and abiding devotion to my adopted nation (I’m being serious here) and my overriding concern for any match is that the words get through on time. Full stop.
But I do get furious with England rugby and the accepting softness with which the Eddie blunders are greeted. I am furious with England, for their ceaseless underachieving and if honest, with the bullshit that seems to flow out of successive coaching groups in torrents, through every regime and, sometimes, after every match. Perhaps the nadir came from one head man not too long ago. “Yes, we were very poor today. But you should seen have how good we were in training.”
Jones insults the Gallagher Premiership when he announces a team not based on form or consistency of selection
Jones insults the Gallagher Premiership when he announces a team not based on form or consistency of selection
Frankly, I want England to win every game, I want the clubs flowing with boys and girls (we had 31 teenage girls at ours last Sunday; imagine the gang we would attract if England’s men were inspirational). I believe in the amateur sport as a force for good. I want it to come to people’s attention.
And if we are allowed a personal note, then there is additional anger relating to newspapers. All sports have to be out there and to be up there, if they are to attract the attention not only of advertisers, sponsors, subscribers and the public, but perhaps especially of our editors. Rugby is always up against the colossus that is football and at the moment — admittedly perhaps by default in disaster — cricket. Then there is Formula One with its titanic climax. England’s relatively mediocre rugby results have cost them the oxygen of space. Square yards and drumming keystrokes of it.
And for that most recently I hold Jones responsible. It is not England I dislike, quite the reverse; nor Jones personally, he seems an eminently decent bloke when he is not pulling out all the stops to appear contrary. But transcripts of what he said after announcing yet another bewilderingly misguided squad this week revealed that he referred to the Six Nations, the engine of the sport, as “England’s fourth-last campaign” before the World Cup.
He never appears to grasp the glorious possibilities for confidence, stature and profit of a grand slam. He never grasps that people paying big money for a wide-eyed Twickenham pilgrimage with mates or offspring, do not care about some distant tournament. They want a cracking win. Today.
Ford, who has been in excellent form for Leicester, was left out of Jones’s initial squad but could now be called up after the injury to Farrell
Ford, who has been in excellent form for Leicester, was left out of Jones’s initial squad but could now be called up after the injury to Farrell
No one who has been alive for a few decades has to be convinced. When England and Scotland faced each other for a grand-slam shoot-out in 1990 we had a match so colossal that it spanned rugby, national enmities, ancient battles, politics, taxing, Mrs Thatcher, as well as modern day rugby jealousies. The tension of that day and its import just sucked all the air out of your lungs. Unforgettable.
And one more grand-slam exhibit, as if it were really needed. England and Ireland met in another shoot-out (in other words, both were played four, won four) in Dublin in 2003. The wit and the pace and power and authority England wielded that day against a very fine Ireland team, showed what rugby in this country is really capable of.
Someone like Matt Dawson may have had his critics, but find the replay and see how beautifully he played, so free from the constraints of modern England, who seem to take the field with their minds clogged by massed ranks of rasping coaches.
The other insult is to the Gallagher Premiership when Jones announces a team not based on form or consistency of selection. He appears anxious at every turn to deny the evidence of a league that is absolutely priceless to England. And perhaps rather pompously and over-ambitiously, he has said that he can assess players better as they wander round the national training base.
Frankly, if you are talking about coaching standards, you would say that the players of Saracens, Wasps, Bristol Bears, Exeter Chiefs and Leicester Tigers and probably other clubs, are working with a far more proficient coaching group than when they are in national camp.
Passion for a national team is marvellous, and by nature is myopic. Fine. We are happy to be your public service newspaper, and take all the stick. But there is an underlying sense that this England under this management, are being fêted far more loudly than they deserve.
Bewildering World of Eddie: England Six Nations 2022
181 Players chosen for England squads by Jones
Much-decorated born winners (dropped)
George Ford, Mako Vunipola, Billy Vunipola
Not even one full Prem tyros (in)
Orlando Bailey, Raffi Quirke
Bow to public opinion (in)
Marcus Smith
Ignore public opinion (out)
Alex Lozowski
Members of disastrous club team (in)
Will Stuart, Orlando Bailey, Charlie Ewels
Coming back after injury (in)
Jack Nowell, Owen Farrell, Alfie Barbeary
Coming back after injury (out)
Elliot Daly, Manu Tuilagi, Sam Underhill
Abandoned fond punts (out)
Mark Wilson, Adam Radwan, Ollie Lawrence, Ted Hill, Trevor Davison, Brad Shields, Piers Francis, George Martin, Paul Hill, Teimana Harrison, Alex Mitchell
Latest fond longshots (in)
Orlando Bailey, Ollie Chessum, Tommy Freeman, Joe Heyes, Ollie Hassell-Collins, Luke Northmore, Raffi Quirke, George Furbank
