England’s camp will be their last period of time together before the Australian announces his Quilter Internationals squad on Thursday 18 October. It’s valuable time in order to ‘put down some parameters’ and another focus will be to ‘implement a slightly different defence philosophy’ with John Mitchell arriving in role.
With 12 months to go before Rugby World Cup 2019, Eddie Jones wants his England side to continue to evolve tactically, in all areas, so that teams won’t work them out. Another clearly stated aim is to be the side that can get the consistency of performances together to regularly beat the best in the world. This, Eddie Jones explained, when reflecting on South Africa’s 36-34 win over New Zealand in the Rugby Championship.
“I think it's great for World Rugby. The All Blacks’ losses are quite cyclical. If you look at their batting average, they're batting 90 per cent so they lose one Test every year. Everyone's excited but they're still a great team. It was a great effort from South Africa. The thing that always strikes me – and I've been coaching 20 years – is how much the value of emotion is in our game.
“South Africa are under the pump, the coach is going to get sacked, they go to Wellington and they can't win. They come out with this unbelievable defensive effort, New Zealand are just slightly off their game and they win. The test is: can you keep batting at that intensity?
“The interesting thing is that you’ve got New Zealand here [out in front] and then you’ve got a host of other countries here [behind them]. Then there’s this battle of who’s going to get the consistency to get up there and challenge, and that’s what we’re aiming for, to be that team.
“South Africa have done it this year but can they sustain that, we’ve seen Australia do it last year, we’ve seen Ireland do it, so like any great team they’re [New Zealand] beatable - every team is beatable - but you’ve got to have consistency to be able to sustain that effort.”
Away from England’s aims and ambitions, one man’s name dominated the conversation on announcement day - Danny Cipriani.
The new Cherry and White was one of the 30 players that received phone calls from Eddie Jones on Wednesday telling them that they hadn’t made the cut and talking through feedback about their respective performances. England’s head coach decided to take two standoffs in camp so that they gained the maximum reps during a short camp, in Bristol one day will be commercial so training time is ‘around 70 minutes’ according to Eddie Jones.
“Ten is a very influential position. He’s the bus driver of the side and he’s the conductor of the side and if Danny is a better player than Owen and George he can certainly promote himself ahead of them.
“From what I’ve seen at the moment, he’s not in terms of the whole context of the team. But, certainly he’s a good player and he’s done some good things but there’s areas of his game that he needs to attend to and I’ve spoken to him about that. He understands it, his club understands it and they’re going to work very hard to fix those areas.”
Eddie Jones doesn’t share particulars about feedback due to those conversations being confidential between him and his players. Cipriani’s specifics weren’t discussed however the head coach did discuss elements that he looks at, in more general terms, from a fly-half.
“A Test match game of rugby now is 100 minutes. The ball is in play 40 minutes. So if you are a No. 10 you might touch the ball 15 times for one second. So you’ve only got the ball in hand for 15 seconds so what you do the other 39 minutes 45 seconds is vital and you don’t see that on television. What you do off the ball is massively influential in the game.”
When analysing the form of one of the fly-halves included, George Ford, England’s head coach was pleased with what he’s seen to date.
“He’s got back to being what he’s good at and that’s taking the ball square and flat, attacking the line, looking for opportunities.
“To me, it’s interesting… I go and watch three club games a week and being at the game some of the quality of his [George Ford’s] play is absolutely outstanding. But, it’s like he’s an invisible man. Whereas one other player throws one pass and he’s super man!”
It’s been a busy time of late around the England set-up and the most recent announcement, prior to the squad, was John Mitchell’s appointment into the coaching team. The former New Zealand head coach was formally announced as England’s defence coach earlier in the week however Eddie Jones spoke about him being a ‘senior coach’ within the national set-up.
“If you look at the last three World Cups, how many senior coaches has each team had that’s won them? 2007, 2011, 2015 all had two senior coaches and I think it’s vital for the World Cup so I’ve always had the plan to find the right person and some circumstances you can control and some circumstances you don’t.
“Guzzy got a promotion and left, that wasn’t planned but we’re very happy for him - he’s probably not that happy at the moment though [after Quins' loss at the weekend] - and John, who I’ve known for 20 years, I’ve coached against John since 2000 when he took over Waikato, and I know that every time I coach against a team that he’s coached he’s improved that team immeasurably, so it was almost a bit of a no-brainer for me.
“You’ve got a bloke who’s got international experience who every team he goes to he improves, to have him on the coaching staff is fantastic. He’s a strong guy too, an opinionated guy and we need that in the coaching box.”
England’s coaches will have 36 players to work with in Bristol and have another 30 waiting in the wings. The competition for places is hotting up and the early signs are that the quality of rugby played in the Gallagher Premiership is soaring. It’s just as well too because with South Africa, New Zealand, Japan and Australia on the horizon, and Rugby World Cup 2019 hurtling around the corner at breakneck speed, the time is now for England to press on and deliver.
“South Africa are under the pump, the coach is going to get sacked, they go to Wellington and they can't win. They come out with this unbelievable defensive effort, New Zealand are just slightly off their game and they win. The test is: can you keep batting at that intensity?
“The interesting thing is that you’ve got New Zealand here [out in front] and then you’ve got a host of other countries here [behind them]. Then there’s this battle of who’s going to get the consistency to get up there and challenge, and that’s what we’re aiming for, to be that team.
“South Africa have done it this year but can they sustain that, we’ve seen Australia do it last year, we’ve seen Ireland do it, so like any great team they’re [New Zealand] beatable - every team is beatable - but you’ve got to have consistency to be able to sustain that effort.”
Away from England’s aims and ambitions, one man’s name dominated the conversation on announcement day - Danny Cipriani.
The new Cherry and White was one of the 30 players that received phone calls from Eddie Jones on Wednesday telling them that they hadn’t made the cut and talking through feedback about their respective performances. England’s head coach decided to take two standoffs in camp so that they gained the maximum reps during a short camp, in Bristol one day will be commercial so training time is ‘around 70 minutes’ according to Eddie Jones.
“Ten is a very influential position. He’s the bus driver of the side and he’s the conductor of the side and if Danny is a better player than Owen and George he can certainly promote himself ahead of them.
“From what I’ve seen at the moment, he’s not in terms of the whole context of the team. But, certainly he’s a good player and he’s done some good things but there’s areas of his game that he needs to attend to and I’ve spoken to him about that. He understands it, his club understands it and they’re going to work very hard to fix those areas.”
Eddie Jones doesn’t share particulars about feedback due to those conversations being confidential between him and his players. Cipriani’s specifics weren’t discussed however the head coach did discuss elements that he looks at, in more general terms, from a fly-half.
“A Test match game of rugby now is 100 minutes. The ball is in play 40 minutes. So if you are a No. 10 you might touch the ball 15 times for one second. So you’ve only got the ball in hand for 15 seconds so what you do the other 39 minutes 45 seconds is vital and you don’t see that on television. What you do off the ball is massively influential in the game.”
When analysing the form of one of the fly-halves included, George Ford, England’s head coach was pleased with what he’s seen to date.
“He’s got back to being what he’s good at and that’s taking the ball square and flat, attacking the line, looking for opportunities.
“To me, it’s interesting… I go and watch three club games a week and being at the game some of the quality of his [George Ford’s] play is absolutely outstanding. But, it’s like he’s an invisible man. Whereas one other player throws one pass and he’s super man!”
It’s been a busy time of late around the England set-up and the most recent announcement, prior to the squad, was John Mitchell’s appointment into the coaching team. The former New Zealand head coach was formally announced as England’s defence coach earlier in the week however Eddie Jones spoke about him being a ‘senior coach’ within the national set-up.
“If you look at the last three World Cups, how many senior coaches has each team had that’s won them? 2007, 2011, 2015 all had two senior coaches and I think it’s vital for the World Cup so I’ve always had the plan to find the right person and some circumstances you can control and some circumstances you don’t.
“Guzzy got a promotion and left, that wasn’t planned but we’re very happy for him - he’s probably not that happy at the moment though [after Quins' loss at the weekend] - and John, who I’ve known for 20 years, I’ve coached against John since 2000 when he took over Waikato, and I know that every time I coach against a team that he’s coached he’s improved that team immeasurably, so it was almost a bit of a no-brainer for me.
“You’ve got a bloke who’s got international experience who every team he goes to he improves, to have him on the coaching staff is fantastic. He’s a strong guy too, an opinionated guy and we need that in the coaching box.”
England’s coaches will have 36 players to work with in Bristol and have another 30 waiting in the wings. The competition for places is hotting up and the early signs are that the quality of rugby played in the Gallagher Premiership is soaring. It’s just as well too because with South Africa, New Zealand, Japan and Australia on the horizon, and Rugby World Cup 2019 hurtling around the corner at breakneck speed, the time is now for England to press on and deliver.
