Leadership is one of sport’s intangibles. Eddie Jones caused a stir when he made Dylan Hartley his first captain, given the hooker’s less than exemplary disciplinary record, but it was an astute choice as England’s problems without him emphasise.
England’s 2015 World Cup had ended after they had failed to engage with the French referees in their matches against Wales and Australia and one of Hartley’s qualities was getting officials to listen to him and he was always unfailingly polite and deferential. Owen Farrell was in one sense a natural successor to Hartley, a player who makes himself heard, but they are contrasting leaders. The Northampton hooker’s deference has been replaced by a more strident, hectoring tone that made no impression on Romain Poite in Bloemfontein.
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