Former captain claims England are 'spoilt for choice'
Former England captain Dylan Hartley believes that England are 'spoilt for choice' when it comes to squad depth.
An England side including two debutants - centre Guy Porter and wing Tommy Freeman - claimed an impressive 25-17 over the Wallabies in Brisbane.
Hartley, who served under Jones for several years before retiring in 2018 - said the win was evidence of the strength in depth of this current England team.
"He's spoilt for choice, right? Alex Mitchell is not on tour for example, you could play him at nine," Hartley told Sky Sports after the match.
"He handed out debuts today [in the second Test] and debuts last week, and he won a Test match against a good Australian side. If he's got that luxury, I suppose that's what he's doing, if he's confident his team can win.
"He picks a side to win the game, that's what he always says."
England will be forced to reshuffle again ahead of the decider in Sydney - with Maro Itoje and Sam Underhill now both ruled out.
"Whilst you want your out and out 15, you also have to explore options because injuries are inevitable," he said.
"Two or three guys from that World Cup starting XV in Eddie's mind will not be there at the time. There will be a bolter that comes through [too]. He's spoilt for choice, there are so many good players."
The second Test win has given Jones a reprieve after the question over his future was raised after first Test loss in Perth. The victory brought to an end a run of four losses in a row for the Australian.
Jones has remained defiant amid calls for his resignation, with his mother even asking was he getting the boot.
"I like it. I think it is fantastic. I love my mother ringing me up in the morning saying ‘are you going to get sacked? When do you have to move? Are you going to come back to Australia? Come back and live in Randwick’,” Jones said.
“I love that. My poor mother. But I don’t mind it because I have made the choice to take the job and that’s always going to happen because there’s infatuation with sacking coaches now isn’t there?”
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Haha yeah, agreed. Remember Schmidt wasn't heavily involved at that point right? I agree to me it did look more organic, like it players playing naturally, devoid of a lot of the coaching garbage (that includes what Schmidt likes to do, he would have known to be hands off, he can't do much in one week).
Go to commentsA deep question!
First, the point would be you wouldn't have a share of those penalities if you didn't choose good scrummers right.
So having incentive to scrummaging well gives more space in the field through having less mobile players.
This balance is what we always strive to come back to being the focus of any law change right.
So to bring that back to some of the points in this article, if changing the current 'offense' structure of scrums, to say not penalizing a team that's doing their utmost to hold up the scrum (allowing play to continue even if they did finally succumb to collapsing or w/e for example), how are we going to stop that from creating a situation were a coach can prioritize the open play abilities of their tight five, sacrificing pure scrummaging, because they won't be overly punished by having a weak scrum?
But to get back on topic, yes, that balance is too skewed, the prevalence has been too much/frequent.
At the highest level, with the best referees and most capable props, it can play out appealingly well. As you go down the levels, the coaching of tactics seems to remain high, but the ability of the players to adapt and hold their scrum up against that guy boring, or the skill of the ref in determining what the cause was and which of those two to penalize, quickly degrades the quality of the contest and spectacle imo (thank good european rugby left that phase behind!)
Personally I have some very drastic changes in mind for the game that easily remedy this prpblem (as they do for all circumstances), but the scope of them is too great to bring into this context (some I have brought in were applicable), and without them I can only resolve to come up with lots of 'finicky' like those here. It is easy to understand why there is reluctance in their uptake.
I also think it is very folly of WR to try and create this 'perfect' picture of simple laws that can be used to cover all aspects of the game, like 'a game to be played on your feet' etc, and not accept it needs lots of little unique laws like these. I'd be really happy to create some arbitrary advantage for the scrum victors (similar angle to yours), like if you can make your scrum go forward, that resets the offside line from being the ball to the back foot etc, so as to create a way where your scrum wins a foot be "5 meters back" from the scrum becomes 7, or not being able to advance forward past the offisde line (attack gets a free run at you somehow, or devide the field into segments and require certain numbers to remain in the other sgements (like the 30m circle/fielders behind square requirements in cricket). If you're defending and you go forward then not just is your 9 still allowed to harras the opposition but the backline can move up from the 5m line to the scrum line or something.
Make it a real mini game, take your solutions and making them all circumstantial. Having differences between quick ball or ball held in longer, being able to go forward, or being pushed backwards, even to where the scrum stops and the ref puts his arm out in your favour. Think of like a quick tap scenario, but where theres no tap. If the defending team collapses the scrum in honest attempt (even allow the attacking side to collapse it after gong forward) the ball can be picked up (by say the eight) who can run forward without being allowed to be tackled until he's past the back of the scrum for example. It's like a little mini picture of where the defence is scrambling back onside after a quick tap was taken.
The purpose/intent (of any such gimmick) is that it's going to be so much harder to stop his momentum, and subsequent tempo, that it's a really good advantage for having such a powerful scrum. No change of play to a lineout or blowing of the whistle needed.
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