Nick Cain: No bluffing, Eddie Jones wants improvement– and fast!

If anyone was under any illusions about the relentless work-rate that Eddie Jones expects of himself, and, more significantly, of those wanting to wear the England shirt, then his Press conference at Twickenham on Friday will have shattered them for good.
We know already that Jones is a clever tactician, in terms of pure rugby knowledge as well as man-management, and the carefully aimed shots he fired at his squad by warning five unnamed squad players that their careers would be curtailed unless they bucked-up their ideas was proof of the latter.
However, his past record also tells England’s elite players that there is no bluff or bluster about his warning that they should stop resting on the laurels and basking in Grand Slam glory, beguiled by the honeyed words of agents whispering in their ears how good they are and how much they are worth.
For Jones the 2016 Slam is past history, and he has proved before that he is ruthless in weeding out those whose work-ethic and selfless contribution to the team cause do not tally with his own.
The most instructive item about what he wants, and expects, came from the only Grand Slam anecdote he allowed himself in a lengthy media session, and focused on the contribution Ben Youngs made to the England cause when the going got tough in Paris.
Jones entwined it with his latest visit to a Premiership football coach he admires, namely Guus Hiddink at Chelsea, and the similarities between what they inherited in their new jobs.
Jones said: “I went out to Chelsea on Tuesday, I had a look at their facility. Unbelievable. We don’t have a Russian benefactor, but it would be pretty handy. Speaking to Hiddink, who has had an unbelievable coaching career, the problems he had when he took over (Chelsea) were similar to England. He inherited a team that wasn’t performing, had factions, and it’s about how he put them back together and out of the relegation zone.”
He continued: “One of the things that resonated with me is that he didn’t go back to what happened. He concentrated on what they can do in the future, which was not dissimilar to what we tried to do with England.
“We didn’t go back and say ‘right, these things were wrong, these things were right’, we just concentrated on ‘this is your opportunity now to change it – you are either part of the problem or part of the solution. If you want to be part of the solution you start working hard, you start playing for the team, you start understanding how to be selfless’.”
Jones concluded with the way Youngs handled himself after being dropped to the bench against France despite playing out of his skin in the preceding win over the Welsh.
“The best example for me was Danny Care and Ben Youngs. Ben Youngs was one of our best players against Wales – outstanding – but accepted the fact that against France we wanted to play a different way at the start of the game. That is selfless. That is understanding that your role in the team is not about you, it is about what you give to the team. Coaching-wise that was my proudest moment.”
While Care, above, scored a virtuoso first-half try, Youngs went on to play a key role in Anthony Watson’s decisive second-half try. He did it by linking with Billy Vunipola after his charge from the base of the scrum and breaking the French defensive line before putting through a precision grubber for the wing to score.
If being a team-player is at the base of the Jones prototype, then hard graft is at the summit with it. The Aussie is the harshest of task-masters because he knows that only the highest of standards will take England to the holy grail of being world champions again – and his message to his squad is that anyone who is not prepared to go through the pain and sacrifice to reach those goals will not last the journey.
There were words of encouragement for a number of players, but along with it there was invariably an exhortation to do better. His view of Manu Tuilagi – who described himself recently as ‘almost world class’ – was a case in point.
“I went out and watched him last week (against Stade Francais). I thought he was a bit sharper. He probably still hasn’t got his full power and acceleration back, but he looks like he is getting better every week. His effort was good but he is just missing that little bit of zip at the moment.”
Jones said that Leicester’s European Cup semi-final against Racing this weekend would give Tuilagi a great stage to make those gains, adding the mischievous twist that it could be at the expense of the French side’s All Black living legend, Dan Carter.
“You want to see him run over the top of Dan Carter, don’t you? No disrespect. You are not supposed to do that anymore. Sorry.”
Not that Tuilagi, above, has a free ride to the No.12 shirt, with Jones also waxing lyrical about the merits of the incumbent, Owen Farrell, and Ben Te’o, the Worcester-bound former South Sydney Rabbitoh who has proved to be a powerhouse for Leinster this season.
Jones described Te’o’s credentials as impressive, calling Sam Burgess‘ former team-mate, “an absolutely outstanding Rugby League player”.
He added that it gave him three potentially world-class options at inside-centre, a problem position during Stuart Lancaster’s tenure which Jones appears to have resolved rapidly.
The other Lancaster selection riddle that appears closer to resolution than at any time for eight years is the emergence of genuine openside contenders to challenge James Haskell for the No.7 berth, with Northampton‘s Teimana
Harrison emerging as a dark horse to compete with Jack Clifford and Matt Kvesic.
The good news is that Kvesic appears to be rising to the challenge, giving a performance as gritty as it was promising in Gloucester’s win over Exeter at Kingsholm on Friday night.
Sticking with the forwards, Jones said he wants a specialist scrum coach, and he wants him to be English. This is mainly because Ian Peel, the new Saracens scrum coach, cannot fulfil the role on a part-time basis.
“We need to put more focus on that area, and need to have a more dominant scrum, so we want to appoint a full-time scrum coach,” Jones said.
Dominance, and the search for it, is a recurrent theme in the Jones lexicon, and he is confident in his ability to achieve it as long as he has players with the determination to reach for the stars. His message to them this week was that those who don’t will not get the chance to shine.