England watch – any reasons to be cheerful?

In the cold light of day a 33-0 away victory in the Six Nations – albeit against Italy – is not to be sniffed at.

And in the context of this so-called “New England” experiment by Eddie Jones, a match which could have been a bit of a banana skin for England’s inexperienced youngsters was reasonably comfortably negotiated.

So, reasons to be cheerful? Well, kind of. 

England’s pack went pretty well, the scrum is improving and, though the lineout wasn’t 100% up to scratch, it is getting there. Behind the scrum, meanwhile, Harry Randall was sharp and decisive and England looked dangerous whenever Marcus Smith had the ball.

And yet, as a whole, it didn’t quite click.

For me there is still something a little imbalanced about this England team. The pack, to me, feels a little one-paced, especially with a world class lock (Maro Itoje) playing on the flank (he played well, but he is so much more effective as a lock), whilst the backline still clearly lacks some ball-carrying heft in the absence of Manu Tuilagi, and is currently light on pace in the wider channels, meaning that many of the opportunities created by Marcus Smith appear to be going begging, with neither Max Malins or Freddie Steward, fine footballers that they are, being able to capitalise fully.

The team also appear a little confused by the new direction. After all, for the last couple of years, “kick everything” has been the mantra, so they all looked a little frantic and giddy at the prospect of moving the ball around.

And the replacement policy adopted by Eddie Jones continues to baffle. Was there a need, for instance, to replace the lively Harry Randall with Ben Youngs on around 60 minutes? All this did was slow down the service to Smith (just when England needed a higher tempo) and result in a last quarter of needless box kicking. I get that Youngs was equalling the record for the number of England caps - congratulations to him for that – but I’d say enough is enough now – time for the new generation.

As for trying to shoehorn George Ford into the team late on – don’t get me started.

With two weeks before Wales visit Twickenham, there is time for Eddie to reflect on where he wants this England team to go – the temptation will be to go back to the tried and tested, but hopefully he will persist with his “New England” strategy.

The team I’d like to see* take the field against Wales would look something like:

15. Steward 14. Radwan (we need some serious gas from somewhere) 13. Slade 12. Tuilagi 

(or in his absence a strong ball carrier such as Mark Atkinson from the current squad) 11. Nowell 10. Smith 9. Randall/Quirke 1. Genge 2. Cowan-Dickie 3. Sinckler 4. Itoje 5. Isiekwe 6. Simmonds 7. Curry 8. Dombrandt

16. George 17. Marler 18. Heyes 19. Chessum 20. Ewels 21. Quirke/Randall 22. Malins 23. Marchant

*assumes Jonny Hill, Courtney Lawes and Sam Underhill remain injured and unavailable.

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