Jones

[Oakboy]

Having been pilloried for harping on about our useless head-coach and spoiling other threads, I think we should properly debate the most important issue in consideration of future prospects. The odd selection yes/no is so insignificant compared with the real problem. Jones is just not good enough.

Facts:
1. His teams regularly ‘don’t turn up’ for crunch matches.
2. In the RWC final, his team lost the 1st half badly and the 2nd half by an even worse margin.
3. Many SH pundits warned about his inability to inspire teams long-term.
4. He exhibits stubbornness in selection and game-plan.
5. He favours programmed play and selects accordingly.
6. He wasted large chunks of game time on no-hopers like T’eo and Shields.

Speculation:
1. He likes ‘yes-men’ - e.g. Selecting Farrell over Ford/Cipriani.
2. He treads water when winning – initial winning streak.
3. He trades on the odd good performance – e.g. SF v NZ.
4. He fails to identify major issues e.g. 9/12 selection.
5. He fails in real pragmatic decisions e.g. starting Marler v SA

Opinion:
1. He should never have been appointed.
2. He has outdone any usefulness.
3. His apparent success with England coincides with increased numbers of quality players that a better head-coach would have exploited to better effect.
4. He should be sacked now. Don’t let him wreck the next two years, spoiling a successor’s preparation opportunities.

[hugh_woatmeigh]

Mental illness ain't no joke.

[Banquo]

A couple of points to kick off with
He's not useless- he has the best win/loss record of any England coach in history at 78.3% by 6 percentage points; he won a GS and a 6N and got to a w/c semi, a step change on the previous two world cups. He's beaten NZ, which is rare for us.
He doesn't 'favour' programmed play any more than any other coach, he does what he thinks is best suited to the players he has.
And I'm not much of a Jones fan!

[Oakboy]

A couple of points to kick off with
He's not useless- he has the best win/loss record of any England coach in history at 78.3% by 6 percentage points; he won a GS and a 6N and got to a w/c semi, a step change on the previous two world cups. He's beaten NZ, which is rare for us.
He doesn't 'favour' programmed play any more than any other coach, he does what he thinks is best suited to the players he has.
And I'm not much of a Jones fan!

True but, as regards his record, he should have done that with the available playing resources - so much better than any of his predecessors since 2003.

I just can't swallow the 'we beat NZ so everything is rosy' bit. Logically, either they were below par on the day or we were in the final. Only one guy controlled the approach to both games and SA are not a substantially better team than NZ.

[fivepointer]

Jones has his flaws and has made mistakes. He's not perfect. But then no coach is. Expecting any coach to get everything right, every time, is unrealistic.
Yes, his handling of the 9 position in particular has been appalling. He has made some bad picks and invested time in players he shouldnt have.
But he has largely got selection right. He has given young players opportunities and arrived at a WC with a squad that few of us could find much fault in.
Some of the players he has backed have come good and are high quality international performers.
We leave the WC with the core of a fine squad that will see us through to the next one.
And we've been successful. GS and 6N's titles and a WC final appearance are substantial achievements. As Banquo points out his win ratio is impressive and unprecedented.
On balance, he's done well for England and at least deserves to stay for another year to see if he can move us forward.

[Raggs]

I doubt he controlled all the drops and knock ons.

[Banquo]

A couple of points to kick off with
He's not useless- he has the best win/loss record of any England coach in history at 78.3% by 6 percentage points; he won a GS and a 6N and got to a w/c semi, a step change on the previous two world cups. He's beaten NZ, which is rare for us.
He doesn't 'favour' programmed play any more than any other coach, he does what he thinks is best suited to the players he has.
And I'm not much of a Jones fan!

True but, as regards his record, he should have done that with the available playing resources - so much better than any of his predecessors since 2003.

I just can't swallow the 'we beat NZ so everything is rosy' bit. Logically, either they were below par on the day or we were in the final. Only one guy controlled the approach to both games and SA are not a substantially better team than NZ.

No-one has said that, including me. His record is so much better than anyone elses as England coach, and he started with a pretty poor start point as far as England squads go...

[Tigersman]

1. Surely if Jones team doesn't turn up for crunch matches then we would have lost in the Semi Final?
2. True, but still a rwc final.
3. Many Pundits said that he wouldn't be able to work with the RFU straight away, many pundits thought he should be replaced before the RWC. Yet still got to the final.
4. Most international coaches do, If you don't stick to your long term gameplan you end up like Lancaster trying to change it 6 months before a RWC and not making the pools.
5. Isn't that the same as the gameplan point?
6. You mean Te'o the British and Irish lion Te'o. Shields yeh I would agree on. But who knows about Te'o if he had stayed fit.

Speculation:
1. He likes ‘yes-men’ - e.g. Selecting Farrell over Ford/Cipriani. Cips I understand not being picked he can't goal kick.
2. He treads water when winning – initial winning streak. Not sure what that means.
3. He trades on the odd good performance – e.g. SF v NZ. Also as said the highest winning % of a England coach.....
4. He fails to identify major issues e.g. 9/12 selection. 12 selection is more a English rugby thing only really Farrell and Manu have show to be international 12's.
5. He fails in real pragmatic decisions e.g. starting Marler v SA Kinda agree on this.

[Tigersman]

And whilst England does have the playing resources we also lack the central central that every other major Rugby union bar France has over their players which gives a major advantage to those Coaches.

Eddie said from the start judge him on the RWC, well he took us to a final that no one predicted before.

[morepork]

Beating us so comprehensively in a SF is no small thing. I'll warrant we haven't been fucked that hard since Scout camp.

[Mellsblue]

Beating us so comprehensively in a SF is no small thing. I'll warrant we haven't been fucked that hard since Scout camp.

Ha. Very good.

[Danno]

Hatchet job, dual wielding.

[Danno]

And whilst England does have the playing resources we also lack the central central that every other major Rugby union bar France has over their players which gives a major advantage to those Coaches.

Eddie said from the start judge him on the RWC, well he took us to a final that no one predicted before.

This.

[p/d]

Preferred our 2007 journey. After taking a hammering in the opener the squad and coach showed real character and brought us to our feet in the final.

Under Jones the honeymoon period was good - if not flawed - but we have often flattered to deceive, been constantly frustrated by selection choices and at the end of it all we folded.

That said no evidence any other coach would have matched let alone bettered where Jones got us.

Did I want him, no. Do I want him to stay and build towards the next WC, no.

[Tigersman]

I thought the story of the 2007 RWC was that the players took charge from the coach in a revolt, and led the charge to the final themselves.

[Which Tyler]

I thought the story of the 2007 RWC was that the players took charge from the coach in a revolt, and led the charge to the final themselves.

It was complicated.
The coach was trying to enable the players to make their own decisions and take control
The players revolted against that, staged a coup, and took control in order to make their own decisions

[p/d]

I thought the story of the 2007 RWC was that the players took charge from the coach in a revolt, and led the charge to the final themselves.

Now that is character

[Epaminondas Pules]

Fact:
Some people don’t know what a fact is.

[Stom]

I think you're wrong on most counts, tbh.

I think he is definitely good enough and knows how to set a rugby team up to play.

He has some problems, mainly around being set in his ways and wanting a lot of structure, but he's still a hell of a lot less structured than Gatland, for instance.

His "failure to identify major issues at 9/12 is nonsense. There's been no choice. There were no other choices at 12 that looked remotely acceptable.

At 9, he didn't like something about Care. Other than that, he could have given Robson more time before his DVT, otherwise...there's not been much choice, the young SHs are coming through now, not 2 years ago (Robson aside).

I don't think his selection of the best LHP in the world in the WC final was a lack of pragmatism. It was rather other selections.

The issue with him IS his failure to address the leadership problem from a cultural PoV. He came in and attempted to impose his own Aussie concept of leadership, which failed to work because Hartley was a bit of a muppet and blocked a shirt from George.

Then he continued by picking the most chippy of our players as captain rather than turning to a traditional English style captain or an inspirational captain a la MJ. Which, quelle surprise, led to a lack of leadership.

This is the one area he needs to work on and it will also lead to better ability to "turn up". I am now convinced he can do that.

[Mikey Brown]

1. Surely if Jones team doesn't turn up for crunch matches then we would have lost in the Semi Final?
2. True, but still a rwc final.
3. Many Pundits said that he wouldn't be able to work with the RFU straight away, many pundits thought he should be replaced before the RWC. Yet still got to the final.
4. Most international coaches do, If you don't stick to your long term gameplan you end up like Lancaster trying to change it 6 months before a RWC and not making the pools.
5. Isn't that the same as the gameplan point?
6. You mean Te'o the British and Irish lion Te'o. Shields yeh I would agree on. But who knows about Te'o if he had stayed fit.

Speculation:
1. He likes ‘yes-men’ - e.g. Selecting Farrell over Ford/Cipriani. Cips I understand not being picked he can't goal kick.
2. He treads water when winning – initial winning streak. Not sure what that means.
3. He trades on the odd good performance – e.g. SF v NZ. Also as said the highest winning % of a England coach.....
4. He fails to identify major issues e.g. 9/12 selection. 12 selection is more a English rugby thing only really Farrell and Manu have show to be international 12's.
5. He fails in real pragmatic decisions e.g. starting Marler v SA Kinda agree on this.

Yep. New Zealand away from home in a knockout RWC game is as big as it gets. Can't really claim he's failed on all crunch games. I guess we only had France in our grandslam decider but it was still a grandslam decider.

I would have been happy to see Marler start but there were a lot of people saying he was the best prop in the world shortly before the game so would have been odd not to start him.

If he really wanted Te'o and a hard runner at 12 I really don't know why he didn't look at Faz/Te'o/Joseph more when he had the chance. Some of the points are unfair but he was weirdly stubborn about quite a few areas.

What happened to Cipriani's goal kicking anyway?

[zer0]

It was complicated.
The coach was trying to enable the players to make their own decisions and take control
The players revolted against that, staged a coup, and took control in order to make their own decisions

Tout cela semble très familier.

[Puja]

If he really wanted Te'o and a hard runner at 12 I really don't know why he didn't look at Faz/Te'o/Joseph more when he had the chance. Some of the points are unfair but he was weirdly stubborn about quite a few areas.

What happened to Cipriani's goal kicking anyway?

He did give Farrell/Te'o/Slade the 2018 Autumn Internationals (when Joseph was injured, I think?) and it wasn't really his fault that Te'o was sh*t.

I'm not sure where the idea that Cipriani can't kick comes from. He doesn't kick for Glaws often as 12T is metronomic, but he's perfectly capable and I've seen him kick pressure kicks for England (vs NZ in 2014 as an example). I have issues with picking Cipriani for England, but goal-kicking isn't one of them.

Puja

[Digby]

A couple of points to kick off with
He's not useless- he has the best win/loss record of any England coach in history at 78.3% by 6 percentage points; he won a GS and a 6N and got to a w/c semi, a step change on the previous two world cups. He's beaten NZ, which is rare for us.
He doesn't 'favour' programmed play any more than any other coach, he does what he thinks is best suited to the players he has.
And I'm not much of a Jones fan!

I'm slightly interested to see if from now Jones will start to try and do more with England. I can only conclude still we showed so little as he thought across the board, fitness, skills and decision making, we were much worse at rugby than teams he was used to in Oz or Japan. And it's possible we're now at what Eddie considers a base camp.

Also whilst technically true he got to a w/c semi he might claim more

[Scrumhead]

Having been pilloried for harping on about our useless head-coach and spoiling other threads, I think we should properly debate the most important issue in consideration of future prospects. The odd selection yes/no is so insignificant compared with the real problem. Jones is just not good enough.

Facts:
1. His teams regularly ‘don’t turn up’ for crunch matches.
2. In the RWC final, his team lost the 1st half badly and the 2nd half by an even worse margin.
3. Many SH pundits warned about his inability to inspire teams long-term.
4. He exhibits stubbornness in selection and game-plan.
5. He favours programmed play and selects accordingly.
6. He wasted large chunks of game time on no-hopers like T’eo and Shields.

Speculation:
1. He likes ‘yes-men’ - e.g. Selecting Farrell over Ford/Cipriani.
2. He treads water when winning – initial winning streak.
3. He trades on the odd good performance – e.g. SF v NZ.
4. He fails to identify major issues e.g. 9/12 selection.
5. He fails in real pragmatic decisions e.g. starting Marler v SA

Opinion:
1. He should never have been appointed.
2. He has outdone any usefulness.
3. His apparent success with England coincides with increased numbers of quality players that a better head-coach would have exploited to better effect.
4. He should be sacked now. Don’t let him wreck the next two years, spoiling a successor’s preparation opportunities.

So who is? Baxter and Sanderson?

Honestly, Tigersman and Stom have covered everything I would have said in response to your OP.

I have plenty of frustrations with Eddie, but there’s not much he can do if we don’t have test level alternatives in some positions.

To save us all the hassle of trying to reason with you, why don’t you reconsider all of the points you’ve raised and give some rational, sensible suggestions about what you think could have been done better i.e. who you would have picked etc?

If we sacked the first coach to get us to a World Cup final in 12 years I doubt there would be too many queuing up to offer their services. In effect, what you are saying is, win the World Cup or you’re not good enough (or in fact ‘useless’), which currently rules out everyone but Rassie Erasmus.

[jngf]

I would say Jones has exceeded my expectations in getting England to a World Cup final ( when I thought we were capable of getting no higher than semis ) - on a superficial level you could say he’s been demonstrably better than Robbo, MJ and Burt - and achieved to date the same level as Brian Ashton with an England Team ( depending on the extent of credit that reaching 2007 final was down to management at the time).
I do have the impression that Jones thinks the only way England can succeed is through a power based forward driven approach and that he doesn’t fully have confidence that the English rugby system can produce highly skilled players with a bit of flair and individual flashes of brilliance. His early approach to finding the biggest guy possible to fill the 7 shirt and 12 shirt was an example of this imo.I’m not sure he’ll ever be convinced English players can be trusted to improvise or deviate from an established script.