Eddie Jones revealed as secret Toulouse coach
As far as strange thinking goes, it does not get much stranger than the substitutions made at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday as Toulouse lost to Leinster 41-22 in the Heineken Champions Cup semi-final.
With centre Pierre-Louis Barassi going off injured after the 15th minute of the match, the most obvious substitution looked to be bringing winger Arthur Retière on and moving Juan Cruz Mallía from the wing to the centres. But no. Instead, head coach Ugo Mola decided to bring on scrum-half Paul Graou, and it came off about as well as you would expect.
This move forced starting scrum-half, talisman, reigning Six Nations Player of the Championship and arguably the best player in the world Antoine Dupont to move into the fly-half position, while starting fly-half Romain Ntamack moved to the centres.
Now Dupont is capable of playing at fly-half, he did it recently against Lyon with some great success, but Lyon are not Leinster playing at the Aviva Stadium. Most of Toulouse and France’s success comes from Dupont dictating the tempo of the match in the No9 jersey- take him away from there and either side look significantly slower and ponderous.
There is only one coach that has made his name by making arcane positional choices over the last decade, and that is Eddie Jones. Whether it is locks playing at flanker, flankers playing at No8, fly-halves playing in the centres or wingers playing at fullback, Jones went wild at times with his positional choices while in charge of England. If anyone needed any proof that the Australian has been brushing up on his coaching with Toulouse as he awaits the Rugby Championship, this is perhaps it.
Toulouse fans will get plenty of sympathy from England fans, who are all too familiar with the ordeal of scratching their heads wondering why a player is playing so badly out of position. Wallabies fans have that to look forward to as well.
