Everything starts somewhere and, if one is looking to pinpoint the precise moment of England’s new beginning, it seems to have been at around six o’clock on a bleak and freezing day in Edinburgh, Saturday 6 February 2016. Scotland had not beaten England for eight years and many reckoned this to be their best chance in a long while. After 50 minutes there was a single point in it, the score 7-6. And then it happened. Mako Vunipola had the ball on Scotland’s 22. Finn Russell was closing in from the left, John Hardie from the right. But in the split-second before they hit, Vunipola performed a deft little conjuring trick, one a prop has no more right to know than the audience does a magician’s secrets.
Without turning his head, Vunipola flipped the ball behind his back to Owen Farrell, who passed it straight on again to Jack Nowell. He sprinted into the space Hardie had just vacated and scored the match-winning try. It was a dogfight of a match, one that could have gone either way, until Vunipola broke it open. So England, eighth in the world rankings going into that match, had begun their climb towards No2, where they now sit. Eddie Jones had spent only a fortnight with the team at that point. But no one ever accused him of being slow to know his own mind and he had already made many of the key decisions about England’s personnel and how he wanted them to play.
Related: England see off Australia’s fast start to establish themselves at No2 | Andy Bull
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