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Jones on why 'inward looking' Itoje isn't a future England skipper
By Liam Heagney
Eddie Jones has given a detailed insight into his thoughts on Maro Itoje, explaining why he doesn't believe the forward is England captaincy material and why they have sent him for acting lessons to help develop his leadership and communication skills.
With a successful Autumn Nations Series out of the way, the England coach's latest book, Leadership: Lessons from my life in rugby, is being serialised this week in The Telegraph.
The coverage has so far been compelling. There has been a section on why Jones made Marcus Smith write down answers to three questions as he felt the Harlequins youngster - last Saturday's 80th-minute match-winner versus the Springboks - was wasting his talent.
Owen Farrell has also featured, Jones explaining why he feels his England captain is developing well as a leader, while another extract from what sounds like an intriguing book (written in conjunction with Donald McRae) dwells on the acting lessons that Itoje has been having yet he won't be the England captain.
"There were lots of calls for him to be named as captain of the British and Irish Lions in South Africa in 2021," wrote Jones. "Alun Wyn Jones rightly got the job instead. That seemed sensible to me. I might be wrong, but I am not sure Maro is a future England captain. He is going to be one of the great players, but Maro is very inward looking.
"We have sent Maro to acting classes, which is having a beneficial effect. He speaks more influentially now, and I am hopeful he can develop more communication and leadership skills. Acting brings Maro out of himself. We don’t want to quench his inner drive, but we will have made huge progress if we can tap into it in different ways so that it transmits to his teammates.
"The acting classes are a practical step to helping Maro and others share that internal fire and magic which makes them special. We are always looking to see if we can develop these traits and find the right mix of leaders.
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Latest Comments
Well the other idea I had been toying with which I think is still used in football, is something like each pool winners of the Challenge Cup gets entry into the round of 16 etc (or whateveer equivalnt entry point we can come up with) in the Champions Cup.
Those T2 sides could play a pool or some simple comp with the bottom dwellers (that was actually something else I liked in Jones structure, he left out 2 English sides alltogehter, 4+4-2), and then come into the Challenge Cup when those top4 sides go up?
That idea just helps keep a nice balance for me. I like both comps having exactly the same structure, and raising 4 or so T2 sides requires that to break in some manner.
Neither. You have a situation where like the Stormers lose to la Rochelle in Ro16 but lose out to a lower performing league team in Benneton (5th place v 7th) just because they made it to the semis of Challenge Cup.
Go to commentsWalter has been permanently psychologically damaged since his wife left him and moved in with a man from Sydney.
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