Six Nations 2018: Eddie Jones eyes history to leave a legacy as Rugby World Cup plan takes on a bigger picture
The Australian will stay with England until 2021 after signing a new contract, and with his side on the verge of making history, he has his sights set on changing the future of English rugby
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Eddie Jones has made it abundantly clear what he wants from this Six Nations championship. A third successive championship, with the chance to become the first team to win the title outright three times in a row, and another accolade under Jones’ rapidly expanding honours list is very much the minimum expectation over the course of the next six weeks.
If England do so with a Grand Slam to boot, that will be the icing on the cake for the head coach, who has already expressed how happy he is with life in on these shores by extending his stay earlier this month for an extra two years until 2021. That contract extension, along with his aim to dominate Europe again this year, is the perfect example of what Jones is trying to achieve.
He wants to leave a legacy.
England’s improvement under the Australian since he took the reins in late 2015 has been nothing short of a remarkable resurrection. No other England coach has got close to his winning record of 95.67 per cent, and if he can deliver on his promise to win the 2019 Rugby World Cup and topple the All Blacks along the way, he could well go down as an even greater coach than Sir Clive Woodward.
But Jones will be the first to tell you that this is not about him. This is about the 23 players that he sends out each week, or the unlucky few that get sent home to their clubs that push the squad on the new and unexplored levels. This is about the winning culture that has been developed among the players and to never know when they are beat – something that should not be the hardest thing to generate when you have the wealthiest union and largest talent pool at your disposal, yet so many before Jones have failed to develop it.
Of course, England cannot yet call themselves world beaters, not until they take on and see off the All Blacks and lift the Webb Ellis Cup for the first time since 2003, but they certainly look like they are on course to have a chance of doing so. But that in itself is exactly why they are such a juicy attraction to shoot down.
Imagine the pride in being the team that shoots down the form side in the Northern Hemisphere. Ireland managed to taste this feeling last year in Dublin and the party afterwards felt as if they Six Nations trophy was staying in the Irish capital and not departing on the first flight back to London. Imagine the party this time around if Joe Schmidt’s side can do the same on the St Patrick’s Day this time around with not just the Six Nations on the line – but perhaps even the Grand Slam.
The rest of the nations will believe that they can knock England off their perch, but the problem lies in that England seem to have an endless conveyor belt of talent to replace any injuries that complicate their preparations. When Billy Vunipola suffered his fractured arm earlier this month with Nathan Hughes already sidelined, panic briefly set in that England would not have a No 8 available to meet the standard required in the Six Nations.
But that brief moment passed almost as soon as it appeared, as in will come Sam Simmonds, one of the form players in the Premiership this season, and if anything befalls the Exeter Chiefs back-row, then one of the most exciting young talents in English rugby is ready to step up in the form of Zach Mercer. It says an awful lot about the player reserves that Don Armand, without a doubt the in-form flanker in the Premiership, still cannot get into a full-strength England squad.
The problem for the Irelands and Scotlands and Wales’ and the rest is that this pretty much occurs across the board. If Owen Farrell, the form player in the world in 2017, cannot play for any reason, there is Ben Te’o ready to step in – the bolter of the British and Irish Lions tour who managed to force his way into the Test team. Jones cannot call on wing Elliot Daly this weekend, while Semesa Rokoduguni is out for the season, and yet he has Jonny May, Anthony Watson, Jack Nowell and Denny Solomona to pick from. Such luxuries are not afforded to other teams, and because of this the minimum expectation on England should be championship glory.
Anything less than that and not only will England have failed, but Jones’ legacy will be tarnished, and he has made it clear he has no intention of letting that happen.
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