England wing Max Malins shocked by reasons for omission in Six Nations

Max Malins admits it came as a shock when told by Eddie Jones that he was being dropped by England during last year’s Guinness Six Nations because of his body language. Malins marked his first international appearance since being axed with a two-try salvo in Saturday’s 29-23 Six Nations defeat by Scotland, a performance that helped heal the wounds inflicted a year earlier.
Having appeared in all four championship matches in 2022, the Saracens wing was unexpectedly discarded before the trip to France and given an explanation he found hard to process. “My body language in a walk-through - that was the reason given,” said Malins, who upon missing out on the subsequent tour to Australia went on a three-night holiday to Mykonos with team-mate Ben Earl.
“I didn’t understand it. I was taken aback by it. I’d like to think my attitude was always there. He may have seen something… I’m quite a relaxed guy, not necessarily buzzing around the place all the time. Maybe my relaxed nature put a thought in his head.
“It was certainly a shock at the time and you don’t tend to understand it straight away. It was gutting at the time. When you’re in that shirt and it gets taken away from you, it’s a tough one to take.
“All you can do is take a step back from it and move forward. I had to take it on the chin, reflect on it, and move on. It certainly highlighted to me how quickly it could be taken away and how you should never take being in this environment - being in camp, playing for England - for granted.”
Jones has since been replaced by Steve Borthwick after the RFU reacted to a dismal 2022 by sacking the Australian and appointing his former number two. Borthwick’s faith in Malins, one of the Premiership’s most clinical finishers, was given immediate justification with the Scots unpicked twice by the Bristol-bound 26-year-old.
“Steve has made it clear that we are here because of club form. He asks us to go out there and express what we are good at. He doesn’t necessarily highlight your downfalls,” Malins said. “He obviously wants you to make improvements, where you can, but his big thing is asking us to show what we can do and show your strengths. It’s pleasing to hear and gives you confidence as a player.”
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Hi all. Thanks for commenting. JD is right: the headline is not mine. My headline was what ended up as the first sentence: “Why is Super Rugby Pacific so exciting this season?”. I am certainly not claiming that teams from one competition are better than the teams from another. This type of discussion is entirely subjective (as the teams do not play each other, and even with the players face each other in their national teams, it is in different systems, conditions, etc.). The season being exciting has nothing to do how well the Wallabies will do against the Lions, or against New Zealand.
My sole purpose here was to try explore quantitatively a ‘qualitative’ impression (that the season is exciting).
On Graham’s point about extreme results skewing the results, and Ed’s comment on removing outliers, this is precisely why I report the median values as well as the averages. The median is not skewed by outliers. If the margins of 5 games are 3, 4, 5, 8 and 10 points, the median margin is 5. If there was one blowout and the margins were 3, 4, 5, 8 and 57 points, the median margin is still 5.
Go to commentsPrice, venue, Hosting only done by 1 country, Profits going mostly to one country. Done in Perth…Furtherest away from NZ. Nothing works for NZR there Spew. NZR could host a Nth v Sth and make more money.
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