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'Abject failure': Online England fans haven't taken kindly to the RFU verdict on Eddie Jones

(Photo by Dan Mullan/The RFU Collection via Getty Images)

The initial response among online England fans to the RFU decision to back Eddie Jones after their disappointing Guinness Six Nations has not been positive. After the RFU shared details of their post-tournament debrief on Tuesday, fans took to social media in droves to show their disapproval at the decision to support the Australian. 

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While Twitter has never been a platform for fence-sitting, it is clear to see which side of the fence the majority of online fans are on. The main area of contention for most seems to be that too many out-of-form players were consistently playing in during England’s fifth-place campaign, with accusations that Jones has his favourites who are more or less embedded in his squad. 

The RFU addressed this issue to an extent in their Jones debrief, listing “player preparation and availability” as one of the specific factors that led to England’s dismal defence of their 2020 Six Nations title. It said: “Player preparation and availability – several players did not have enough game time going into the Six Nations. 

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Kurtley Beale guests on the latest RugbyPass Offload with Simon Zebo and Ryan Wilson

“Conversely, a wider group were fatigued as a result of being the only country to have back-to-back seasons; resulting in players having no mental break from one season to the next. In addition, a handful of notable players were unavailable.” 

However, those explanations were not enough for many. While t helps explain why some Saracens players (currently in the Greene King IPA Championship) were rusty, and even why some Gallagher Premiership players may have been underperforming as well, it didn’t explain why some in-form players across England were not picked. 

Sam Simmonds’ name unsurprisingly cropped up online, as the Exeter Chiefs No8 became the poster boy for the squadron of in-form club players who were overlooked. That does come down to the personal preference of Jones, though, and the RFU did mention that “fixed squads prevented players coming in and out during the campaign as they would normally”.

Jones did suggest that change is afoot, which may please some disgruntled fans. He said: “During the Six Nations we were not up to our usual high standards and we recognise that. The debrief was a valuable process. We all learned a lot from the experience and most importantly we have identified actions to enable the team to move forward positively towards 2023. 

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“I’m looking forward to the summer tour which will provide a great opportunity to see more of our emerging talent and I’m confident our next team will come back stronger this autumn building up to a winning performance in the next Six Nations.”

https://twitter.com/DJBurges/status/1384493662080405507?s=20

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J
JW 2 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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