Eddie Jones’ ex assistant pinpoints exactly where England are going wrong
It is not very often that a coach from a previous tenure gets to share their opinion on where the current team are going wrong, but that is exactly what England’s former scrum coach Matt Proudfoot did recently.
The former Scotland international and 2019 World Cup winning scrum coach left his role with England alongside Eddie Jones at the end of last year following a lacklustre autumn, and watch England’s recently capitulation against France at Twickenham as a neutral.
Speaking to SuperSport after the match, Proudfoot outlined what Jones was trying to achieve with England and why that might be causing some confusion with the current squad, and it all ultimately comes down to who is wearing the No10 shirt.
“Eddie wanted to go with a power game,” Proudfoot said. “To compete with the southern hemisphere teams, you need a power game and he tried to go with super power. That’s why Owen [Farrell] went into fly-half. So you can see the selection model now, do they go a high continuity side with [Marcus] Smith at No10 or do they stick with Farrell at No10 and play a more traditional kicking game with a power game?
“I think this whole flux where they are is what depends on the selection of their No10. Their big guns up front, they’re missing [Luke] Cowan-Dickie, who adds a lot up front, they’re missing Tom Curry and they’re missing Courtney Lawes. Those three are half their pack, and they’re tougher forwards, and I just think they’re probably missing a [Joe] Launchbury in the second row. So they’re missing a big chunk of what their pack could be.
“So you can see they’re between which style are they going to go to. The English press are pushing for Smith and a more continuity-based side where Ireland are. Probably the more traditional side, big maul, big scrum, big kicking game, and you can seen half the players, probably the Saracens guys, are in this camp and the other guys, probably the Harlequins guys, are in that camp- they want to play a more unstructured type of game.”
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