Surely you would not sack the most successful coach you’ve had without a clear vision. So what is the RFU’s grand plan?Eight minutes to play and England are 14 points down against New Zealand. Will Stuart has just scored in the corner and Marcus Smith is standing over the conversion, on the 22, five metres in from the right touchline. It should be Owen Farrell’s kick.Farrell, who has made every shot at goal so far in the autumn, 15 out of 15 in 200 minutes of Test rugby, is on the pitch, but struggling with a dead leg. So it falls to Smith. He strides up, leans back a touch too much as he swings his boot through and the...
Talk of firing the coach nine months out from a World Cup ignores the very traits that make him worth sticking byThere have been a few good Eddie Jones stories going round the grounds lately. Joe Simpson told one the other day about the time Jones gave a steak to one of his assistant coaches as an apology for shouting at him. When the coach got home he found out it was a bag of sausages. “You’re not ready for steak yet,” Jones told him.Here’s another, a little different to some of the others. In 2019, Jones read a Guardian article about an England fan who had travelled to watch the team play in Japan while he was sick with...
There was no thrilling Twickenham comeback this time as savvy Springboks come out on top in attritional battleAll the talk before the match was about what a tough Test this would be, England’s players and coaches spoke about how they wanted to “front up”, “take them on physically”, and “match them up front”, as the assistant coach Richard Cockerill put it: “You know what’s coming with the Springboks.” All of which was true enough. It was a nasty Test, played on a nasty evening, when winter seemed to have come rushing in all of a sudden on a stiff, swirling wind, and with a lick of drizzle. It was a game of scrums, thumps, slips, smashes, and penalties, played under...
Three England tries in seven late minutes salvaged a 25-25 draw with New Zealand in a match that had appeared lostIt seemed to start raining in the final minutes at Twickenham, a shower of fat drops of beer from the clear night sky. They fell as the fans up in the gods leapt to their feet and threw their pints above them. Given what they charge for the stuff around these parts, it is probably not something you would do unless you had lost the run of yourself. But then it has been a long time since Twickenham has seen anything like those crazily helter-skelter final minutes, when England peeled off one, two, three tries in the space of seven...
The No 15s for England and New Zealand offer contrasting but important skills and can make the difference at TwickenhamThere are mouthwatering matchups all over the pitch at Twickenham on Saturday but the contest that most catches my eye is between the two full-backs. Freddie Steward, England’s Mr Reliable, against one of the All Blacks’ most lethal weapons in Beauden Barrett. Two completely different players but both are integral to their teams this on Saturday.Steward has looked comfortable at full-back for England since his very first cap. He has 15 now and I can honestly say he has not had a bad performance for the national side. The baseline requirements for a full-back are positional sense, providing security at the...