The Eddie Jones reply to England criticism from Steve Borthwick
Eddie Jones has admitted that Steve Borthwick was probably right when stating he had inherited an England team that weren’t good at anything. Borthwick, who took over from Jones as head coach in December, offered the damning assessment following last Saturday’s 29-23 Guinness Six Nations defeat by Scotland at Twickenham.
Jones was sacked after presiding over a dire 2022 and, having now taken charge of Australia, he has accepted that his attempts to enhance England’s attack created problems. “Well, he is probably right and that is part of the problem,” Jones told the podcast EDDIE.
“We were trying to morph a team that had had a very good set-piece and very good kicking game. The way that the game is played at the moment, that will win you games but it is probably not good enough to be World Cup champions.
“And so expanding the attack sometimes takes away from your strengths and they are going through that difficult period now where they are trying to get that balance right in their game. But Steve will fix it. There is no doubt he will fix it - and keep blaming me. That is all right. I have got a pretty strong back and pretty strong shoulders to absorb that.”
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Barnes is on the board of the RFU as referee representative. The Referees Union who wrote the letter calling for a Special General Meeting over the pay of execs/losses and more made mistakes. A symtom of a good letter is that you can stand behind every line in it as factual. While there are several good points in their letter they allowed a few ill thought out rants. This meant that the Board via Wayne Barnes can undermine the letter by focusing on the inaccuracies which weakens the real points. I'm not saying Barnes is acting untoward, he's not, he is concerned about refs showing hypocricy and he is also defending the RFU.
The Referees position is weakened simply by not being able to write a proper letter.
This is not untypical of sporting organisations and representatives at all levels.
Go to commentsYes, it will become much harder to target an opposing scrum now, which is why I think having a solid rather than dominant scrum will be enough for teams in the future. While the impact of the 30 second law is still to be fully felt, the free kick law has already had an impact. I can't imagine the Boks taking many quick taps from free kicks in the past. They would have taken a scrum to work a penalty or continue their 'slow poison' on the legs of the opposition. With that option off the table the scrum has already become less important as a weapon.
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