Eddie Jones has seen a plethora of young England players pass through in his seven years in charge (Photo by Andrew Matthews/PA Images via Getty Images) I’ve heard a couple of horror stories about treatment of players and backroom staff. It’s well documented that Eddie has used over 180 players since he came in, and that’s fair enough, but look at how are they brought in and jettisoned. You have to be able to deal with backs-to-the-wall situations in-game, but you also need to know what each and every one of the team and staff is going to do in pressure situations and more importantly what they will bring to the group to find a solution. That high turnover, even if it’s subconscious, is going to create a modicum of instability or lack of absolute trust.
Now I’m not suggesting that England make the environment too comfortable, because that’s not what international rugby is all about. They shape that unbreakable bond to succeed in high-intensity environments. We used to have a podiatrist who worked at Chelsea when he was at Stamford Bridge, and she’d say, ‘the players love him, every session is planned to the tee and no one ever has any downtime.’ The problem for England is it’s become the ‘Eddie Jones Show’ and has been for a while. The narrative in the press has been more about, ‘how clever is Eddie?’, than the players.īackground staff are critical because you have to implicitly trust everyone within the organisation. There’s no doubt Eddie is the Jose Mourinho of rugby. It was like they were trying to create an atmosphere, and false bravado. I remember when I was at Leicester some of the Kiwi players at Northampton doing it, but it felt contrived. Celebrating every minor gain like they’d won the game. That sounded to me like, ‘we have to make it feel like we’re dominating’ but when the tide turned the silent contrast was stark. In other words, the team that adapts quickest survives. England’s ability to get out of dark places in recent times has been poor and I think the overriding reason for this is belief. Take the first Test. They shot themselves in the foot with all that whooping and hollering in the first half. One of my lasting memories is their saying that, ‘the best battle plan in the world never survives the first contact with the enemy’. Like the players, I think Eddie is a tactical rugby genius, However, during my career we leant heavily on the Royal Marines and Special Boat Service for learning how we could get better.
He just made them believe all week they were going to beat the All Blacks, and they did so in some style. Contrast his style of coaching with Andy Farrell. If we rewind to 2012, when England beat New Zealand at Twickenham, everyone I spoke to said that win was down to Andy Farrell.
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