England’s autumn campaign is up and running and has started with a victory. It was a victory based on defiant defence and pulling through an afternoon that I'm sure the players themselves would describe as being a 'somewhat frustrating' one the office.
"It was a grindathon wasn’t it!? They played well, we were off the pace a little but I thought that there were some things that we did really well,” said Eddie Jones following the 21-8 victory.
"The reality is that we haven’t played a game since March together and we had players coming back from the Lions who have done two training sessions with us so our fluency and understanding wasn’t there."
There's no questioning the fact his side's performance didn’t quite the pizzazz and fizz that we expected however in sport, at any level, afternoon's like Saturday's happen. Afternoons when things that you do in training stutter out there on the park. Afternoons when moves that you've run all week breakdown and afternoons when it feels everything is just that little bit harder than it should have be. These are the type of games when it's easy to let the frustration get the better of you and actually lose a match. Here I'm speaking from personal experience having been through them whilst playing national level netball in my teens and at university. As an athlete, and as a team, as much as you wish to avoid them these type of games are a fact of sporting life. Unfortuately not every day can be a walk in the park and when you get the result from a ‘grindathon’ you breathe a little sigh of relief, take it and move on knowing that next week will be better.
On Saturday afternoon elements and areas that we thought would fly - like the midfield partnership - didn't however on any other day it may well have. Prior to the game England's head coach had highlighted that his 12-13 partnership was in its 'infancy' and Eddie Jones' words on the subject after was that 'it just didn't gel'. I personally remain eager to see what the combination can do with further time together because the potential remains great. The interesting thing now will be to see if England's head coach decides to run the same combination again versus Australia and Samoa in order give the unit that time together?
“In terms of increasing the depth of our squad, which is the theme of 2017, we did that. We’ve got young Simmonds as a possibility at 8, Underhill looks like he can be a genuine seven, Harry Williams is coming on, Genge, Lozowski. Anthony Watston has given us a second option at full back. He did a great job. We’ve got to find one more option at full back then we’ve got the three.”
The above rings true in every sense. Sam Underhill looked a natural out there on the Twickenham turf and a player that wasn't mentioned above due to being more established - Nathan Hughes - really stepped up. The No. 8's carrying on the international stage is becoming more potent with every minute played and his hands to take George Ford's sublime pass for the try were outstanding.
Eddie Jones' final task of the day on Saturday was to start laying pressure at Australia’s door by asking them to turn up and really be counted for at Twickenham Stadium next weekend.
“We are hoping Australia bring their absolute best game. We want Australia to bring their best game and see where we are at.”
With that England’s head coach started to turn the spotlight onto next weekend's visitors and inferred that if the Wallabies don’t bring their A game then they’ll be in a spot of bother! Clearly England need to make significant steps up in order to maintain their impressive home record under Eddie Jones and without question I believe that they will.
A team that is perfect every single weekend won’t have the depth of experience required when it comes to the defining moments in the defining competitions. Roads to World Cups, and victories at them, aren't plain sailing and perfect and instead a couple of grinathons arrive along the way and teams will be better as a result of them.
