The post-mortem of England’s Six Nations disaster started minutes after their Twickenham hammering by champions Ireland on Saturday - and looks like it will continue in the forthcoming days, weeks and months.
Going into this year’s championship Eddie Jones’s side were favourites to retain the title they won in 2017. But following victories in the two opening games against Italy and Wales, it all started to go downhill when England lost to Scotland 23-13 at Murrayfield.
Further defeats against France in Paris and at Twickenham against Ireland meant that England finished the 2018 Six Nations in fifth place - their worst performance in decades.
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While Ireland celebrated a St Patrick’s Day Grand Slam, England were left to look back on a campaign so disappointing it could derail any chance of success at next year’s Rugby World Cup in Japan.
Rugby pundits across England are analysing the poor performances and what Jones can do to turn his side’s fortunes around ahead of the three-Test summer tour to South Africa in June.
Lessons must be learned
The Guardian’s Robert Kitson says England looked so “collectively wooden” that head coach Jones is “virtually back where he started two years ago”. Unless England “absorb the harsh lessons” of the Six Nations campaign, then Japan 2019 could be spell more disappointment.
He wrote: “The chances of them prospering in Japan are on a par with Eddie Jones holidaying in Wales in the near future. English fans still clinging to the fast fading memories of 2016 and 2017 need to accept the opposition have not just caught up with Jones’s squad but, in several respects, overtaken them.”
What next for Eddie Jones?
The Times rugby writers ask: is Eddie Jones the right man to lead England into the next World Cup? Jones signed a new two-year deal in January but after the shocking Six Nations his role is under scrutiny.
Owen Slot, Alex Lowe and Ben Kay believe Jones should stay on but Stuart Barnes is less than convinced. Barnes said: “The question was inconceivable six weeks ago, now I’m not so sure.”
On The Daily Telegraph Full Contact podcast, Brian Moore says that Jones “needs to look at the efficacy of his coaching team” while Rob Andrew thinks England are “getting themselves into trouble and now can’t find their way out of it”.
Andrew said: “It looked like Eddie couldn’t do anything wrong when he first came in, and now it looks like he can’t do anything right. It just looks and feels like loads of little things are going wrong across the team.”
Appoint an attack coach
A lot has been said about the lack of an attack coach within the England ranks. The Times’s Owen Slot recommends Kiwi Jason O’Halloran for the role while Ben Kay says New South Wales Waratahs coach Daryl Gibson “would challenge Jones and they could be a potent combination”.
Should Dylan Hartley remain as England captain?
“Enter Owen Farrell,” says Owen Slot. While Stuart Barnes believes Maro Itoje should be England’s World Cup captain. Alex Lowe picks Hartley “by default” while Ben Kay says that “no one has really stood up and shown they are captaincy material”.
No progress has been made
One of the most scathing attacks on England’s performances has come from former centre Jeremy Guscott.
The BBC rugby union analyst says that England have not made any progress in the past 12 months and the Six Nations has proved they “don’t have quality strength in depth”. He believes that’s the reason why you can’t rip up the England squad and start again.
Guscott wrote: “Eddie Jones will strongly believe what he’s been doing is right, but this Six Nations has been a massive reality check. There are a lot of questions, about Eddie and what he’s trying to achieve, but also about which players he’s trying to do that with. His best players are not playing their best rugby and he needs to know why.
“This England squad will be shaken to the core after their performances in the Six Nations. And the only place they can put things right is on the field.”
Next stop: South Africa
Bath back Anthony Watson will miss the rest of the season with an Achilles injury and this means he will also be ruled out of the tour to South Africa.
England 2003 Rugby World Cup winner Will Greenwood believes that a number of Jones’s senior players should also miss the June tour to South Africa in order to rest and recuperate after a long gruelling season.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Greenwood says that England’s British & Irish Lions players should be rested by Jones. He said: “I genuinely think that the most important thing that Eddie Jones can do and, number one on his to-do list, is to get his British & Irish Lions players, the likes of Maro Itoje and Owen Farrell, to the beach this summer.
“You can clearly see a lot of those England players, slowly but surely, getting closer and closer to the empty sign on the petrol gauge.”
England rugby fixtures in 2018
England tour of South Africa
- 9 June: South Africa vs. England, Johannesburg
- 16 June: South Africa vs. England, Bloemfontein
- 23 June: South Africa vs. England, Cape Town
Autumn internationals
- 3 November: England vs. South Africa, Twickenham
- 10 November: England vs. New Zealand, Twickenham
- 17 November: England vs. Japan, Twickenham
- 24 November: England vs. Australia, Twickenham
