Caught on the hop
For some of those who worship at the altar of the monotheist religion of Saint Eddie Jones, England’s rugby coach – and I admit that for a while I was a fan teetering on the point of submitting to conversion – the England v Italy Six Nations game on Sunday may have been a sobering event.
There has been enough media coverage and comment to fill a lifeboat since so I’ll keep my recap to a minimum. Italy, under head coach Conor O’Shea and his defence man (former London and Saracens legend) Brendan Venter of South Africa, came up with the team tactic of not engaging after a tackle had taken place. The clever part of this was that – under the rules of rugby – a ruck is only formed (and thus an offside line established) when two or more players from each team are physically involved. The key aspect was/is the creation of an offside line. For, if there isn’t one, the players on both teams can stand anywhere they like – and O’Shea and Venter ordered their players to place themselves behind the England scrum half and even among the England backs.
The result was total confusion in the England team, none of whom appeared either to understand what was happening or why, and (worse) or how tactically to react.
It all turned all right on the night, of course, because England finished 36-15 winners having scored six tries.
Watching the spectacle unfold on TV on Sunday afternoon was a riveting experience and in my view added considerably to what has become a wonderful 2017 Six Nations tournament. In expressing that, I take nothing away from the puzzlement and indignation of those involved in the game – not least Eddie Jones – who were outraged and spluttered afterwards that it was against the spirit of the laws of the game. The kindest phrase that such critics ascribed to the Italian tactic was a rugby version of the famous phrase used by French Crimean War general Pierre Bosquet (“C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre …”) but in my view Eddie Jones went well over the top, and in doing so reduced himself greatly in my estimation, by stating that what the Italians had done wasn’t rugby and – if it was – then he’d be retiring from having anything to do with the game.
I have just two points to make:
Firstly, rugby has its laws or rules. They’re published for anyone to see and take account of, even use tactically. O’Shea and Venter were doing nothing outside the rules. In fact, their tactic had been deployed before both in the Southern and Northern Hemispheres. They just ordered their team to do it throughout a game.
And it certainly had the desired effect – it caused the England team to lose its focus, flap about, protest, and writhe about in confusion. It took them the whole of the first half – including an hilarious series of ongoing consultations with French referee Romain Poite who put James Haskell and England captain Dylan Hartley firmly in their place when they asked him for advice as to what to do – “I’m the referee, not a coach”.
But secondly – and crucially – the incident and resulting controversy demonstrated that Eddie Jones is not the Messiah and that and his England coaching staff are not supermen, as some England fans and rugby journos had become prone to claiming as England have progressed along their consecutive 17-match international winning streak, now only one behind the existing world record held by New Zealand.
Eddie Jones’s widely-expressed complaints to the media, and his frustration and anger, was not (as it might have seemed) caused directly and exclusively by the Italians’ tactic at the tackle breakdown area.
It was rather the massive dent that had been inflicted upon the mythology surrounding Jones’s proud status as rugby’s Special One. This had largely been built upon his reputation as being a workaholic and an uncompromising taskmaster who slept little and was constantly preparing everyone under him for the next game.
All that stuff about damning his players with faint praise to keep them on their toes. And the awed confessions of his coaching team that – even after a thrilling and comprehensive victory – they were always in anticipatory fear of the next morning’s incoming pre-breakfast emails from Jones (who would have been up all night writing them) detailing his analysis England’s faults and how he wanted them to be rectified.
His always-entertaining media interviews – savvy and teeming with crisp and pithy criticisms of all parties from his next opponents to his own players – but simultaneously dripping with gleeful barely-disguised ironic self-awareness. Jones gives good copy.
And always prepares his team for every eventuality, so that – whatever happens – they’ll have an instinctive answer to it … because Eddie will have thought of it and not only told them how to deal with it, but will have also been drilling them on the training paddock over and over so that it all came as second nature.
Well not last Sunday it didn’t. Because he hadn’t thought of it, or trained them for it.
And that’s why he was so incensed by Italy’s tactics. Even the great Eddie Jones isn’t capable of thinking of everything. He’s justifiably proud of his mythical reputation for detail and covering every eventuality, but in this instance he was caught wrong-footed and napping.
It will be interesting to see how he reacts in advance of England’s next test – against Scotland at Twickenham on 11th March, the one that could potentially herald England’s world record-equalling 18th consecutive international victory.
Or not. If the resurgent Scottish squad get their collective act together (as Him Indoors says they will) and manage take it to the hosts in style after their stirring wins over Ireland and Wales.
I can see it being a close and ferocious clash.
