An 80% win record, an unwatchable style of Rugby and nepotistic selection. The Eddie Jones Enigma unravelled.

I cannot recall any England coach of a major sport in my short lifetime who has polarised opinion quite like Eddie Jones.

The maverick Australian is outspoken, contrarian and confrontational one minute, then amusing, entertaining, intelligent and analytical the next. You never quite know what you’ll get with Eddie, but his numbers speak for themselves.

An 80% win record, (significantly higher than next best Clive Woodward’s 71%.)

3 Six Nations’ Championships in 5 attempts- one of them a Grand Slam.

World Cup Runners Up in 2019, after an outstanding campaign in which England dismantled Argentina, Australia and New Zealand before coming up short against the Springboks at the final hurdle.

Coming into this year’s Six Nations, England were on another double figure winning streak, favourites for the tournament, and yet after one surprise defeat to Scotland, dissenting voices in the England rugby public are yet again making their feelings be known.

The two major area of concern that are frequently mentioned are team selection and brand of rugby.

Eddie’s Selections

Jones has a core of players who he picks the majority of his team from for every game, he then has one or two ‘outside names’ who he picks, and then often discards straight after, in quite a random manner.

Worcester centre Ollie Lawrence found himself surprisingly thrust into the centres to face Scotland, and after a quiet showing has not yet re-appeared in either of Jones’ squads.

George Furbank suffered a similar fate after a nightmare debut in Paris on the opening week of last year’s Six Nations.

Players who have crossed Jones by challenging his methods, or by disciplinary infractions, such as Danny Care, Alex Goode and Ben Teo found themselves cast out from the England set-up for good.

For a man who selected Dylan Hartley as his captain, despite the Northampton captain’s string of past misdemeanours, Eddie’s lack of consistency in his application of discipline often makes people query how sincere he is about the issue, or whether he just uses it as a tool to discard players he no longer wants or needs.

However the single biggest issue that seems to annoy the Rugby public is the lack of meritocracy in some of his selections.

19 Year Old Leicester Tigers academy lock George Martin, who has made 6 senior appearances, was surprisingly called into the England squad ahead of the inform Dombrandt amongst others, and now is on the bench for Saturday’s trip to Cardiff.

Danny Cipriani’s final appearance for England was in June 2018, he was given a start at 10 in a dead-rubber 3rd test, with England having already lost the series. He played brilliantly, and set up the match winning try to Jonny May with a brilliant kick. The next season he was Premiership player of the year as the architect of a brilliant Gloucester backline that scored tries seemingly for fun.

The louder the media calls got for Cipriani’s inclusion, the more entrenched Jones became to not pick him.

For all the talk about sport science, data analysis, the England coaching ‘group’ and ‘collective decision making’, let’s be clear, Eddie calls the shots. If someone is in the squad it’s because Eddie wants them, if someone’s being omitted, Eddie has made that call.

Ben Youngs has gone past 100 caps and yet is not the player he was 5 years ago, he rarely threatens defences, his pace has gone and his performances are one dimensional.

Dan Robson has put in numerous promising cameos off the bench, and yet there’s no sign that Jones is even yet considering giving him a start in a meaningful game.

Elliot Daly has been poor for a prolonged period of time. He struggles under the high ball and I still feel full-back is not his best position. Yet again his position seems completely secure despite the presence of genuine full-backs playing well domestically.

Owen Farrell’s performances since the World Cup have been erratic at best and some of his Saracens team-mates in the pack such as Billy Vunipola and Jamie George look short of match practise. And yet all 3 of them start against Wales on Saturday, with viable options most likely not really considered.

When you become “Eddie’s man”, he likes you, he trusts you, he feels you’ve won games for him and he can depend on you to do what he tells you, it seems he will pick almost no matter what form you’re in or how well positional rivals are playing.

This annoys the England Rugby public who know that representing England is the ultimate honour, and selection should be completely meritocratic. However Eddie is not going to change, he is a stubborn individual and can (rightly) point to his winning record as justification for his methods. Take me as I am or fire me he’ll say.

The possibility of evolving himself, keeping the things he does well such as his analytical focus, the intensity he brings and creates in the England environment, and the consistency in results he’s brought, and tempering them with greater transparency and meritocracy in selection is never going to happen. It’s just not in his DNA.

Playing Style

England Rugby don’t have an international reputation for playing champagne rugby. Our traditional strengths of strong set piece, accurate kicking (from hand and at goal), and powerful forwards have been a constant of virtually every England side in the professional era.

From day 1, Eddie was clear that he was a results orientated pragmatic coach and style was of secondary importance to him.

The quality of Rugby we’ve been treated to under Jones has fluctuated over the years, with high points being the 2016 tour of Australia and the 2019 World Cup, and the low point being the last 4 months.

The Autumn Nations Cup and first two games of this Six Nations has been dreadful.

England’s decision to adopt a ‘kicking game’ where basically every time we have the ball in our own half (and often in the opposition’s half), we kick it downfield for territory, then look to force a mistake from the opponent, has been awful viewing.

The ball skills of the backline seem to now have diminished as a result of being so underused for a prolonged period of time.

Years of such intense pragmatism are now backfiring as England now seem incapable of basic handling. The error count in games is getting higher and it’s hard to actually enjoy England games anymore as a fan.

Conclusion

England are 6 point favourites in Cardiff, and could well win another Six Nations Championship this year if they win all their remaining games.

We should definitely wait until the end of the campaign before drawing any definitive conclusions about the scale of change that is needed.

However I think even now it is safe to say this.

England fans when back at Twickenham want to see better Rugby. There is nothing more frustrating than seeing Youngs’ overhit and incontestable box kicks, or Ford/Farrell aimlessly kicking it 40 metres downfield simply because we’ve run out of ideas and are not prepared to go through the phases.

We also want to see players being picked on club form and current merit. Not the same players who have ‘credit in the bank’ in the eyes of Eddie, with a few random ‘dark horses’ who Eddie has taken a fancy to sprinkled in.

Even writing this I feel sometimes how could I be so critical of someone who has won 80% of his games as head-coach. It is important to point out all the good things Eddie has done, the quality of his analysis of opponents, the strength of our set piece, the intensity of our performances and our outstanding defence are a few things that spring to mind.

He is England’s best coach since Clive Woodward by far. However selection and the brand of Rugby is no longer a minor irritation, it is now ruining my (and lots of other England fans’) enjoyment of watching England play. Let’s hope it changes.