Austen Healey in The Telegraph.
It is not a question of whether anyone coming in could do any better, it’s a question of whether anyone would do any worse
I have highlighted what he said about Paolo's treatment.
I have called for England coaches to go in the past – Andy Robinson would be a good example – and often it was based on emotion. The Robinson era was tough: post-World Cup, the team was in transition but it lacked quality. He was almost a victim of circumstance.
This time, however, it is based on logic – and Eddie Jones should go. There is a touch of emotion because we all want England to play well, but this is based more on Eddie not resolving so many cumulative problems.
Eddie has become a victim of a process that he was part of creating: having all of his squad, all the time. It’s not good for the players to be in camp for nine weeks – you grow stale and begin to hate each other’s company.
When you look at the other nations – the ones that beat England this year – their players went back to their clubs and then returned to camp. It did them no harm – and in some cases it helped them.
Covid was an issue, of course, and the RFU had to create a ‘bubble’, but the other teams managed to send their players back to their clubs without incident, so why couldn’t England?
When I was playing for England, whether you had a great game or a c--- game, you’d go back and play for your club. That would almost reset you. If you had a poor game for England then you’d be champing at the bit to play for your club – to try and find some form.
That certainly applies to poor Paolo Odogwu. Eddie’s remarks on him, claiming that he will go back to Wasps a better player, were the height of arrogance. It is completely disrespectful, too, towards all the coaches at Wasps and around the country. To think that someone who hasn’t played for eight weeks is going to return to their club a better player because he’s held a tackle shield at different angles is utter nonsense. Eddie should be embarrassed when he reads that back.
Eddie’s insistence on control and micromanaging has been to the detriment of this squad. It has created an insular, ‘them and us’ mentality. It has made England lethargic. Ignoring Italy, England scored just two first-half tries this tournament – that’s down to the squad not feeling energised and ready enough before matches. It’s almost as if England believed they had a divine right to force their way into games – it’s not the case.
For the RFU, Eddie’s future has reached a crossroads: he’s either in for the 2023 World Cup, or he needs to go now, because whoever comes in needs time, especially as it’s looking increasingly likely that there’ll be no summer tour.
You either sack him and find a replacement, for which there are several good candidates – Rob Baxter and Mark McCall among others – or Eddie, the great disruptor, has to break his own status quo. He has become far too close to some of England’s current squad and it’s hard for him to drop them.
It’s not a question, either, of whether anyone coming in could do any better, it’s a question of whether anyone would do any worse? It’s not hard to do better than Eddie’s done this year – if my teenage daughters had been in charge during the Six Nations, would England have finished any differently?
There is no disputing that Eddie is a great rugby coach – his track record speaks for itself. But these are cumulative problems; the players have been in that squad so long that they don’t forget things that have been said. If you want to disrupt them, you naturally go against what you said before, but then you risk looking hypocritical. People remember the mistakes you made, too.
If you looked at the trajectory of Eddie’s England coaching career, it would look like the Big Dipper. Are you on an upwards curve with a Six Nations Grand Slam leading to a World Cup final? Or are you on the downwards slope where everyone is screaming, ‘Let me off’?
Eddie’s rollercoaster has dipped too low, too many times – it’s now time for him to get off.
Always a Wasp
