Here is your opportunity to put yourself in Eddie Jones’ shoes and select your England team to take on South Africa in the first of their Autumn Internationals fixtures.
Think carefully about each position (and note that some players are available in more than one position), and we’ll see how the team shapes up!
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The theoretical issue here is whether to pick who EJ WILL select, or whom he SHOULD select.. within the limitations offered above.
Mostly went for the former, but blew out @ open side flanker, whereby I would have gone for Harrison (this 2 6’s & collective stuff will surely come back to bite EJ in the bottom @ the highest level) & 1/2back, where I would have gone for Care. Youngs kicks toooooooooo much!
Oh & f/back. I’d stick with Brown. Goode doesn’t play under real pressure @ Sarries, so is untested for Int’al level. Not altogether his fault, but as he’s been around for a while (not the future now?), why wasn’t he picked yrs ago if he were that goode?
Mind you, ‘Fast’ Eddie spring a few surprises & pick some unexpected bolters, but I won’t be holding my breath.
I suspect Eddie will surprise us all as usual and still get away with it! In fact if he got away with the crown jewels I wouldn’t be too A. Surprised or B. Too fussed!
The reason: because he’s a great coach and gets the very best out of his players 9 times out of ten!
Also because it will be great to thank the Aussies afterwards of course for lending us such a fantastic coach! Interesting it never happened in reverse! i.e Clive Woodward going to Oz in 2004 say!
Clearly too much for the Aussies i would suggest but not the cosmopolitan and unsurprisingly (to me at any rate) all-accepting and all-suffering English! Not that EJ is remotely in need of being the charitable recipient of suffrage! The man is a delight in every sense of the word – a real gem! In fact he should have been prevented from leaving Aussies shores by some kind of Aussie ‘keep the talent at home amd prevent it going abroad policy!’
Playing people out of position is also becoming his forte for England (a trick he will need to develop further if he is to win the WC when injuries and similar problems will arise)
E.g The use of two very unfashionable 6’s in the immediate post WC era and the continued use of Ford and Farrell in tandem (the latter pairing invented by Bomber admittedly)
The ABs are masters of this flexible approach and seem to have a wider group of players upon whom to rely anytime, any place and anywhere!
So worried about Eddie! You must be joking! In fact for any of us to question him is simply ludicrous! I for one certainly don’t possess the credentials to.
“Charitable recipient of suffrance” meant to say but the predictive rubbish got in the way! Apologies
I think this depends on how EJ sees the game panning out. Will he go for a big strong team to stand toe to toe or a more athletic fast team to try and run them round? I would have Farrell at 10 for this game and Yarde with Roko to add more power to the back line. This lets people like Ford and May come on to run hard in the last 20.