The threat of a crushing defeat to South Africa lurks on Saturday, so the England coach is forced to continuously find new ways of ensuring his players never stop improvingAside from the first pictures of Donald Trump inside the White House there was no disputing the week’s most terrifying image. Those cold-hearted racer snakes lying in wait for young marine iguanas on Sir David Attenborough’s wonderful new BBC natural history series also happened to be an ideal allegory for the treacherous landscape of professional sport. To elude crushing disappointment requires determination and, above all, resourcefulness when it matters.In many ways that is Eddie Jones’s key attribute; it takes more than a pack of biro-wielding snakes to deter the wily, fast-talking...
The Australian Jason Ryles has been hired to ‘crank up intensity’ at the training camp where Jones must evaluate Courtney Lawes’ and Dylan Hartley’s fitnessThe last time England’s rugby players came out to Portugal to prepare for a big game against South Africa was in 2007 during the brief reign as head coach of Brian Ashton. It was an odd period with varying opinions on the best way forward, not least from within the dressing room. England, then as now, had injury concerns and ended up losing 36-0 to the Springboks in Paris.They did, admittedly, bounce back to face the same opponents in the World Cup final but Eddie Jones, as he made clear in the Algarve sunshine on Monday,...
After the injuries to Sam Jones and Anthony Watson, it seems players are beginning to buckle under the demands placed on them by club and countryAs Eddie Jones is discovering, there is no such thing as a mellow autumn for an England coach. His predecessors Martin Johnson and Stuart Lancaster often had to scrape bits of their squads off the floor before the November internationals and history is starting to repeat itself.Already Manu Tuilagi, James Haskell, Sam Jones and now Anthony Watson are out of contention, with Owen Farrell, Dylan Hartley and Ben Te’o yet to prove their fitness and the first two rounds of the European Champions’ Cup still to come. So far so normal. The difference this time,...