Jeff Probyn: Eddie’s lionhearts must now dispel the myth of supermen

As this year’s Six Nations finishes with more of a fizz than a bang, with everything decided last week, have we learned anything that we didn’t know before?
As good as yesterday was, the whole of the Six Nations has been developed around a ‘super Saturday’ concept based on the principal that everything would come down to yesterday’s results. Even the fixtures, admittedly put in place before the start of the contest, had a look of being designed to define the Six Nation’s competition as perfect viewing for the TV audience.
Kicking off with Scotland v Italy, it was the match most would have seen before the tournament as the wooden spoon clash. But with Scotland stunning the Irish in the competition’s first game, backed up with victory over a sorry looking Wales, the Scots were out to finish strongly after the promises of a new dawn were so cruelly exposed by England last week.
France against Wales was next up: a mid-table clash of little or no importance, giving the casual TV punters time to grab a bit of lunch before the main course was served up with all sitting comfortably in front of the box.
The final match, Ireland v England was supposed to be the crowning glory of the competition with either Ireland or England lifting the Six Nations crown. Only that was decided last week when Wales finally manged to get their season back on the rails against Ireland and England annihilated Scotland.
England may have failed to become the second home nations team to win back to back Grand Slams since the war (the first was England in ‘91 and ‘92) but that won’t matter to Eddie Jones, who insists he is focussed on the big prize in two years’ time.
What will matter to Jones, is how many of his England team are picked by Warren Gatland for the summer jolly to New Zealand.
A brief chat in the members bar at Twickenham last week confirmed that Warren and I shared the similar view that England’s power was the defining feature of this Six Nations with no other country able to match that power across the team.
Gatland said: “The England team are so powerful and not just in the forwards, none of the other countries match them. Wales and Ireland can sometimes match England’s power for periods of a game but generally have to work a lot harder to get a result against them.”
A mistake people often make is confusing power with size, you don’t have to be big to be powerful.
Bigger and heavier may make you strong but not necessarily more powerful, whereas a powerful person will also have strength no matter what their size.
Fellow Rugby Paper columnist Shane Williams was not known for his size but was a very powerful runner, probably more powerful than George North, avoiding tackles but with the strength when needed to break them.
Jones will know that for England to keep improving they need to face tougher oppositions who will test that power – but with most teams currently undergoing a rebuild before 2019 and a tour fixture list that doesn’t put the two best teams in the World together until November 2018, opportunities are sparse.
Just ten months after England get to play New Zealand, RWC 2019 kicks off without England’s players facing the All Black again.
Although that may not seem important if England can keep on winning Six Nations and summer tours, it really does leave Jones with a big problem.
If England win against weaker opposition where they don’t have to be at the top of their game, they will not be at their peak when facing strong opposition. Winning may help breed confidence but after a time if you win without having to work hard, it breeds complacency, complacency that can lead to defeat.
The long gap between fixtures between New Zealand and England has served as a major plus for the Kiwis, as regular exposure would have reduced some of the ‘mystique’ that surrounds the All Blacks and enabled our players to see them as just another team.
The first time I played against New Zealand was in the 1991 World Cup and yet I had been in the England squad for six years at the end of a constant media stream of how great the All Blacks were. When England faced them for the first time in eight years in the first game of that World Cup, we were expecting some form of supermen to run onto the pitch.
That is not how Jones will want his players to see the All Blacks come the RWC 2019, but without game time that could be difficult.
Despite England’s record-beating exploits there have been parts of the media questioning whether the run against teams who are perceived as weaker is of the same merit as the All Blacks.
If Gatland’s Lions have a core of England players it will hand Jones a golden opportunity to see which of his players can make the step up to the next level. Jones knows that the more English players that make the Lions squad, the closer he’ll be to his goal of winning RWC 2019.