When the Premiership clubs raise the issue of Eddie Jones’s national squad training sessions this summer, bristling at a high attrition rate, Twickenham should show a video of England’s latest defeat against a nascent South Africa side who were able to recover from an appalling start because of an ability, honed in Super Rugby, to play at sustained pace.
It was a Premiership player, the Sale scrum-half Faf de Klerk, who was his side’s catalyst, but the difference was at forward, where the Springboks retained their shape in the loose when a crazy game was at its most frenetic. England took an early 24-3 lead through the passing ability of George Ford that exploited a narrow, naive defence, but once the home side got hold of the ball, the failings that addled this year’s Six Nations campaign surfaced.
England struggled at the breakdown collectively and their discipline melted. They conceded eight penalties at the breakdown, six in the first half and, having dominated possession and territory in the opening quarter, had by the hour mark had the ball for only 33% of the match.
Jones had picked a side to play a fast game, sacrificing scrummaging and lineout options, which he reduced further after 35 minutes when he took off a second-row, Nick Isiekwe, and brought on a back‑rower, Brad Shields, who had only been with the squad for a week, in an attempt to plug the breakdown and constrict De Klerk by slowing down South Africa’s possession.
His decision to pull Luther Burrell early in the opening Test in Australia two years ago after a slow start worked but Shields had little impact. He was better equipped than his team-mates to deal with the relentless pace of the game, having played Super Rugby for four months, but alone he could not recalibrate the team’s disorientation.
International rugby has changed in the past 18 months, as has the game in the European Champions Cup. It is more fluid, faster and places less reliance on set pieces. Jones’s training sessions are regarded as brutal not because he has players smashing into each other, although a judo session in Brighton yielded a few casualties. Everything is done at pace and when players are blowing he does not allow them respite, pushing them to the limits of their endurance and beyond.
He has to because the Premiership does not condition players for Test rugby. It has developed considerably as a tournament in its 20 years in terms of facilities and the interest it attracts from spectators and sponsors but it is self-contained in a way the Pro 14 and Super Rugby are not. Those who declaim Jones’s methods tend to be club owners rather than coaches, interested in the bottom line, but this season’s Champions Cup should have shown them how the game is moving.
Instead of seeking conflict with England and trying to get Jones to change his training methods, which will not happen, they should be aligning their clubs with the national side, as South Africa have done with their Super Rugby franchises. Just as England lost a game they should have won in Johannesburg, so the Premiership clubs had the playing resources to have made a far greater impact on Europe last season.
The elite player agreement between the RFU and the clubs has worked to a point but its value to owners tends to be financial. It is a partnership only in the loose sense of the word and the professional game as a whole should reflect on Saturday’s defeat – only once before had a tier-one nation recovered from a deficit greater than 21 points to win, Wales in Argentina in 1999 – and devise a way of moving forward together.
It was only last year that Jones was talking about England overhauling New Zealand at the top of the rankings before the start of next year’s World Cup. Two more defeats in South Africa could see them slip to fifth, with the All Blacks arriving at Twickenham in November.
Jones has to look at selection, with Mike Brown playing like a full-back and Elliot Daly an outside back, but the different way matches are refereed in the Premiership and at Test level leaves much of his influence on the training field where, alone, only so much can be achieved.