With the 14 matches going on across the Champions and Challenge Cup on Saturday it wasn’t quite the right time to continue to dive into Eddie Jones’ thoughts when he announced his Six Nations squad. However with a mere three matches today we've a spot more space to work with!
As I mentioned on announcement day the Australian as open and honest about a number of areas and as always I think it's important to highlight so that we're all in a bit more of a knowledgable position regarding his thinking. Below are Eddie Jones' key thoughts on England's attack, their leadership qualiaites, mindset and more.
England must be daring
England’s head coach has said before that teams in the past have approached the Six Nations with a fear of losing rather than wanting to win and as you’d expect he’s looking to focus hard on his side’s mentality. As I mentioned in the squad announcement article their goal is to win and he also wants his players to adhere to his definition of daring:
“Daring doesn’t mean flair. Flair to me is Allan Lamb batting – trying to do the most outrageous things. Or a 20-20 reverse sweep. Daring to me is having the mindset of the first game going out there to win the game, not relying on the opposition to make mistakes. Going out there with a proactive game – we take it to the opposition, this is what we’re going to do, if we do it well enough then we’re going to win the game. Rather than waiting, holding, hoping that they’re going to make mistakes. Hard to convince the team to play like that? We’ll find out.
“The first couple of games [last year] we were quite reticent to play any rugby. We got better against Ireland and Wales and we went back into our shell against France again. That’s the challenge ahead, we’ve got a short period of time to change mindsets but I think we can do that.”
Attack, attack, attack
When taking the job the Australian was clear that the fundamentals of their set piece and defence would fall into place first before the finer details of his side's attacking game and this belief remains strong. England have the brilliance of George Ford and Owen Farrell in the middle alongside ample spark and invention yet their attack, in Eddie Jones’ mind, is still building:
“It's a work in progress. I think our understanding of how we want to attack is improving. We need to improve our individual skills which is why we've got Sherylle Calder in to improve our hand-eye co-ordination. The subtleties of our attack need to improve: the accuracy of our running lines, our alignment and our passing skills.”
One to Watch
As ever players are emerging through the Premiership pathway with big performances at their club and two in particular have stuck out. First Saracens' Alex Lozowski:
"Lozowski has been the find of the Premiership. He plays well at 10, he plays well at 15, he's just got a good head for wanting to improve. So to have him in the squad as a back-up player where he can potentially play 10, 12 or 15 is a great bonus for us."
Next an individual emerging at Bath Rugby, Zach Mercer remains very new to the Premiership competition and as a 19-year-old he's got an awful lot of development ahead of him but he's caught Eddie Jones' eye:
"I like the look of the Bath back-rower, Mercer. I think he’s got something about him. He’s probably not an 8, he’s probably a 6, but he is certainly a guy we’ll keep an eye. Good young player."
Leadership and captaincy
Now one of Eddie Jones’ extended goals, by extended I mean that it isn’t going to happen overnight, is to increase the leadership density of the side. In other words ensure that England have more leaders within the group so that they can fly by themselves. Right now he believes there’s a bit of a leadership deficit in the squad but that's something that can, and should, change:
“My job’s to make myself redundant. I had a coffee with Ben Ryan yesterday and he was saying when he sent his (Fiji) team out to play the (Olympic Sevens) final that was the most relaxed he was because they knew what to do, they knew their job, they could just get on with it. He created in that Fijian team a great strength of leadership ad that’s what we want to do with England.
“Look back to the 2003 team. How many of those blokes had to be told what to do? Richard Hill, Dallaglio, Back, Johnson, Thompson, Dawson, Wilkinson, Greenwood... You had these players who could just get on with the job.”
 |
| (C) Paler Images |
“There is no line to be drawn. It happens naturally. Leadership is something that evolves naturally. If you create the right environment, you get people coming through and you get people dropping off. I know everyone loves Itoje and if he comes through and develops, he could be a candidate but he’s certainly not at the moment.”
So after the final pieces of the European jigsaw have been put into place the squad are heading to Portugal and the plan is simple:
“Just to be on the same page, so that everyone understands what their responsibility is to the team. From a personal point of view we want to have selection clarified. When we catch plane out of Portugal I want to know exactly the 23 that will face France and then understanding how we are going to beat France.”
