“It felt like we were playing one-day cricket; score for score. In the first 20 minutes, we struggled to adjust to the speed of the game. We got a bit shocked by it. We adjusted well, got ourselves back into the game and played some good rugby. But then when we got fatigued in the last 20 minutes we made some crucial errors in execution and it ended up costing us the game.”
These were Eddie Jones’ initial thoughts when I asked him about his assessment of their Quilter Cup encounter with the Barbarians at Twickenham Stadium.
In the sweltering heat England and their opponents defied the conditions and played at a relentless pace. The intensity of the collisions had me wincing in the stands on numerous occasions and, with 15 tries put on the board, it’s safe to say that the 58,000 strong crowd watching in the stands saw more points than they had expected to.
For some this annual fixture against the Barbarians isn’t cherished or loved however it certainly didn’t disappoint me. This year, like those prior, provided England’s head coach with an opportunity to see some different combinations and less experienced players cutting their cloths in South West London.
“As an experience for some of the young players it was absolutely outstanding. I was just speaking to a number of them then and they just struggled to cope with the speed of the game.You’ve got to look at what the game is. We don’t have our top 15 players and we have another 22 players unavailable, so it was a test of our depth. We played against a very good, fast, powerful Barbarians team and at times we struggled to cope with that.”
The chances that the Australian has to expose these individuals to Test level rugby are few and far between and we all know that a World Cup is arriving at a rapid pace. If you can’t test players out against the Barbarians, and shift individuals into slightly different positions, than when can you?
“At the same time I am very impressed with some of the young players. Piers Francis had his best game I’ve seen since Argentina. Tom Curry hasn’t played Test rugby for a long time and I thought he came back and did some good things, but his timing was a little bit off at times. Singleton had his best game that I’ve seen since the Barbarians game last year. So they are good things for us, but we are obviously disappointed with the result.”
From a Barbarian perspective it all came together in superb fashion. When you looked down their team sheet and thought about them clicking, the type of output that we saw was always possible.
Chris Ashton, rightly, will gain a large proportion of the headlines as will the man of the match Semi Radradra. However, let’s just pause and talk about Josua Tuisova who was also spellbinding. He caused havoc from the first moment until the last and his skills reminded us all of the outstanding athletic ability that Fijian rugby players have.
As individuals the Barbarians opened every trick in the book and had the cohesion as a team to drive a historic result home. The last time that invitational side beat England at Twickenham was 2014. At the helm Pat Lam clearly gained the balance right between ‘relationship building’ as he liked to call it afterwards and work. They had just three training sessions together and yet they used them wisely and naturally the head coach was delighted afterwards.
As individuals the Barbarians opened every trick in the book and had the cohesion as a team to drive a historic result home. The last time that invitational side beat England at Twickenham was 2014. At the helm Pat Lam clearly gained the balance right between ‘relationship building’ as he liked to call it afterwards and work. They had just three training sessions together and yet they used them wisely and naturally the head coach was delighted afterwards.
“I’m hugely proud and honoured. I said before that we'd celebrate the five days that we've had and the relationship building exercises that we've had right throughout the week.
“We’ll celebrate that this team will never, ever play again and that this was a one-off. We'll celebrate Lobbe's career.Yes we have lots of X-factor players and lot of players who can play as individuals, but in our beautiful game of rugby it's nothing to do with individuals but about team work.”
Lam himself brought his own selected coaches into the group this week - Jonathan Thomas from Bristol, an analyst and also Tim Allnutt from Connacht - and after he made clear how much he valued their input. The man who will be leading Bristol back in the Premiership next season also shared that he videoed the Barbarians’ training sessions so that those players that may not have been fully ‘with it’ could watch them back! In short the 49-year-old got it just right and his players clearly were incredibly driven to honour the Barbarians jersey and all that it stands for.
For now, those that ran out for the invitational outfit will be able to put their feet up and enjoy the off-season. Juan Martín Fernández Lobbe hangs up his boots for good and his final conversion, including the reception that he gained from every player on the pitch, spoke volumes about the 36-year-old.
The next steps for England and Eddie Jones will be gaining players back from Exeter Chiefs and Saracens and the head coach formalising his final squad for their tour to South Africa. We'll all wait for an update on Tuesday evening regarding that and then it’s all systems go ahead of the first Test against the Springboks on June 9.
The next steps for England and Eddie Jones will be gaining players back from Exeter Chiefs and Saracens and the head coach formalising his final squad for their tour to South Africa. We'll all wait for an update on Tuesday evening regarding that and then it’s all systems go ahead of the first Test against the Springboks on June 9.
