England Watch - is it time for Eddie to go?

So, England finished in third place in the 2022 Six Nations behind France and Ireland, two excellent teams.

No disgrace in that, you might think, but only two victories out of five in the Six Nations for the second year running tells a different story.

Yes, England fought hard when reduced to 14 men against Ireland. Yes, they put up a bit of resistance against France – but surely that’s the bare minimum you would expect from a team that only 2 years ago was (somewhat ludicrously) challenged by Jones to become the best team to have ever played the game?

England, according to Eddie Jones, are heading in the “right direction” and, he says, are only 3% off where they need to be to become successful.

WTF does that mean? As far as I can see there is very little sign of progress in any direction and no discernible plan as to what the team is trying to achieve. Yes, Jones has introduced some new players into the England squad and, inevitably, a bunch of new coaches, but to what end?

England have been both badly selected and badly coached during this Six Nations, and that is down to Jones. This “New England” was supposed to be a team that played quick rugby, ball-in-hand, and a new half back pairing of Harry Randall and Marcus Smith was selected to facilitate this – and yet Jones’s preference for utility players over strike runners outside of Smith, his aversion to selecting pace on the wings and his reluctance to focus on players with breakdown nous in the back row resulted in an attack that was predictable and way too easy to defend against, leading eventually to a return to a kicking strategy as part of a damage limitation exercise against Ireland which was then carried into the finale in Paris as Plans A, B and C all rolled into one.

And I am sick to death of hearing that this is all part of some grand master plan and that we will be all right come the World Cup when there is so little evidence to suggest that might be the case. Eddie has said that we should not be making judgements now – even drawing attention to the fact that, 14 months prior to the last World Cup, South Africa’s results had been poor and yet they went on to lift the trophy in 2019. True enough, but what was not mentioned was that it was the sacking of Allister Coetzee as the Springboks head coach in 2018, replacing him with Rassie Erasmus, that paved the way for the team to become successful.

And that is where England are now. To stick or to twist. The RFU have already come out in support of Jones so we are, I guess, where we are. But the bottom line for me is that Eddie Jones has not been doing a good job for some time now. Two years have been negligently wasted and, as things look right now, his attempts to evolve the team and the way it plays fourteen months out from a World Cup appear doomed to failure. 

Total Flanker – the older I get, the better I was