Kyle Eastmond will show he’s the right fit for England

Bath head coach Mike Ford has branded critics of Kyle Eastmond “uneducated” and is backing the midfielder to put his New Zealand trauma behind him.
Under-fire Eastmond was hauled off at half-time during last week’s third Test horror show in Hamilton, where England shipped four first-half tries. But Ford believes any one of England’s shambolic backline could have been hooked and feels the 24-year-old has unfairly been made a scapegoat.
Ford told The Rugby Paper: “Any defensive system requires your defenders inside and outside you to be on the same page and it was unfortunate for Kyle he was the one who got substituted. As an ex-defence coach, I believe you could have taken anyone off.
“Circumstances dictate that he’s going to get all the blame but that’s far from the case in my eyes. New Zealand scored four tries in the first-half and could have had two more, so you can’t pin all the blame on one man, which would be extremely unfair.
“From Kyle’s point of view he’s an excellent defender and from my dealings with him at Bath he rarely gets the systems or his technique wrong. Even with his size, I’m very confident that he’s a great defender who can compete at the highest level.
“It’s unfortunate for him that people look at what happened and the uneducated will think it’s Kyle Eastmond’s fault. But that’s far from it and I think the England coaches would say it was a system thing, which meant they had to change at half-time.”
Ford expects Eastmond to bounce back quickly, adding: “He’ll have a break now but when Kyle comes back in I’ll have a sit down with him and pick him up a little bit. But he’s still only young and he’s still got a lot to offer both Bath and England.
“I don’t think this will affect him. The older he gets, the more mature he’s getting and he’s figuring out rugby and life. He needs a good pre-season now and then play well again for Bath and show the England coaches that he is the man to pick.”
Eastmond will face further competition at Bath, however, with Ford revealing Rugby League star Sam Burgess is being pencilled in for a midfield berth when he arrives from Sydney later this year.
“I went to Australia at the end of the season and had a good chat with Sam,” Ford said. “I showed him a few Union bits and pieces and we talked about his position.
“We both agreed that with the complexities of the ruck, he’s got to learn that first and foremost. Once we do that we’ll decide from there but he will probably start at centre because that’s the easiest position to learn from early on.
“We’re going to have good competition in there, with Ollie Devoto throwing his hat in the ring. We don’t want guys feeling their shirts are secure, we want to be able to pick the guys who are in form or allow us to rotate.”
NEALE HARVEY
*This article was first published in The Rugby Paper on June 29.