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All Blacks attack coach commends England's new and improved defence

The England players are slowly getting to grips with Felix Jones' defensive system (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

New Zealand and England fans are now counting down the days before their national teams meet in Dunedin to kick off a highly anticipated series, with the rivalry entering a brand new era.

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Of course, before we get there, New Zealand fans have a Super Rugby Pacific final to get through and England have a Test against Japan, which will be streamed live on RugbyPass TV.

The last time the two nations collided, a 25-25 draw at Twickenham, the coaching staff were entirely different with Eddie Jones at England’s helm and Ian Foster running the Kiwi ship.

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Eddie Jones reflects on his career, rugby’s growth in Japan, coaching England and Australia, South African rugby and much more. Full episode coming Tuesday 18 June on RPTV

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Walk the Talk with Eddie Jones – Trailer | RPTV

Eddie Jones reflects on his career, rugby’s growth in Japan, coaching England and Australia, South African rugby and much more. Full episode coming Tuesday 18 June on RPTV

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This time around, Steve Borthwick and a refreshed England coaching group face some familiar faces in a brand new All Blacks contingent.

New Zealand attack coach Jason Holland discussed his connections with his English counterparts and revealed when his analysis of the English team started.

“Have I started watching them? I suppose about an hour after I got told I had the job was when we started watching England,” the former Huuricanes head coach told the All Blacks Podcast.

“But they’re quite different now. Watching the World Cup, and looking at it from an attack point of view, I could see some real space that I thought wow there’s some nice space, we can have a crack there from our set piece, from our lineout or a scrum. I thought that’s nice.

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“But then, coming into the Six Nations they were totally different, way more organised for me, way more aligned as to what they’re trying to do on both sides of the ball.

“I think they’re trying to use the ball a bit more, I think they’ll never go away from their DNA, around the dominance around the set piece and the physicality in them trying to achieve that, but they’re definitely a more organised team defensively.

“I actually coached (new England defence coach) Felix Jones at Munster, he came in after the World Cup from South Africa and Felix, he’s a bit like Rog (Ronan O’Gara), they’re pretty driven guys and they know what they want and Felix has obviously put a lot of good systems in place for England defensively. And they’ve got some good individuals there that will be pretty hard on our ball.

“So there’s definitely been some real growth I reckon. I talk about balance quite often and Steve Borthwick, who loves the physical side of the game, but obviously understands the balance as well because he’s got some guys there who have got them playing a little bit more footy and being more of a threat with the ball in hand, not just by kicking.

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“I reckon what they were doing at the World Cup there, they were pretty unlucky not to be even closer, I reckon they were playing some great footy and it looks like they’re going to be pretty strong with their personnel as to who they bring over.”

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Holland isn’t the only one in the All Blacks camp with connections to their opponents, as forwards coach Jason Ryan also revealed to the All Blacks Podcast in a separate episode earlier last week.

“I’ve seen a lot of England, I’ve got a lot of respect for them,” Ryan said. “Personally I’ve got a bit of a relationship with Steve Borthwick, I’ve stayed in touch with him since we played the Lions in 2017 when I was doing Super with the Crusaders.

“We’ve always stayed in touch, maybe not staying in touch so much this year,” Ryan laughed. “But, I enjoy having a coffee with him and a good rugby conversation.

“He’s coaching them well, they’ve got a big forward pack and a good mix of experience still in there and they’ve got some big, powerful ball-carriers.

“They’re a real good Test side and heading in the right direction. We’ve got full respect for them and we’ll prepare really deeply on that and we had a good look at the Six Nations, as I’m sure they’ve had a good look at us.

“There’s probably a little bit of unknown with us too, with how they’ve previewed, potentially. So, that brings a bit of excitement for the Test series.”

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1 Comment
J
Jon 189 days ago

Nickers will be happy with his own synopsis after reading this.

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T
Tom 1 hour ago
What is the future of rugby in 2025?

Briiiiiiiiiiiiiiiistol! Briiiiiiiiiiiiiiiistol! Briiiiiiiiiiiiiiiistol!


It's incredible to see the boys playing like this. Back to the form that saw them finish on top of the regular season and beat Toulon to win the challenge cup. Ibitoye and Ravouvou doing a cracking Piutau/Radradra impression.


It's abundantly clear that Borthwick and Wigglesworth need to transform the England attack and incorporate some of the Bears way. Unfortunately until the Bears are competing in Europe, the old criticisms will still be used.. we failed to fire any punches against La Rochelle and Leinster which goes to show there is still work to do but both those sides are packed full of elite players so it's not the fairest comparison to expect Bristol to compete with them. I feel Bristol are on the way up though and the best is yet to come. Tom Jordan next year is going to be obscene.


Test rugby is obviously a different beast and does Borthwick have enough time with the players to develop the level of skill the Bears plays have? Even if he wanted to? We should definitely be able to see some progress, Scotland have certainly managed it. England aren't going to start throwing the ball around like that but England's attack looks prehistoric by comparison, I hope they take some inspiration from the clarity and freedom of expression shown by the Bears (and Scotland - who keep beating us, by the way!). Bristol have the best attack in the premiership, it'd be mad for England to ignore it because it doesn't fit with the Borthwick and Wigglesworth idea of how test rugby should be played. You gotta use what is available to you. Sadly I think England will try reluctantly to incorporate some of these ideas and end up even more confused and lacking identity than ever. At the moment England have two teams, they have 14 players and Marcus Smith. Marcus sticks out as a sore thumb in a team coached to play in a manner ideologically opposed to the way he plays rugby, does the Bears factor confuse matters further? I just have no confidence in Borthers and Wiggles.


Crazy to see the Prem with more ball in play than SR!

1 Go to comments
J
JW 5 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

In another recent article I tried to argue for a few key concept changes for EPCR which I think could light the game up in the North.


First, I can't remember who pointed out the obvious elephant in the room (a SA'n poster?), it's a terrible time to play rugby in the NH, and especially your pinnacle tournament. It's been terrible watching with seemingly all the games I wanted to watch being in the dark, hardly able to see what was going on. The Aviva was the only stadium I saw that had lights that could handle the miserable rain. If the global appeal is there, they could do a lot better having day games.


They other primary idea I thuoght would benefit EPCR most, was more content. The Prem could do with it and the Top14 could do with something more important than their own league, so they aren't under so much pressure to sell games. The quality over quantity approach.


Trim it down to two 16 team EPCR competitions, and introduce a third for playing amongst the T2 sides, or the bottom clubs in each league should simply be working on being better during the EPCR.


Champions Cup is made up of league best 15 teams, + 1, the Challenge Cup winner. Without a reason not to, I'd distribute it evenly based on each leauge, dividing into thirds and rounded up, 6 URC 5 Top14 4 English. Each winner (all four) is #1 rank and I'd have a seeding round or two for the other 12 to determine their own brackets for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I'd then hold a 6 game pool, home and away, with consecutive of each for those games that involve SA'n teams. Preferrably I'd have a regional thing were all SA'n teams were in the same pool but that's a bit complex for this simple idea.


That pool round further finalises the seeding for knockout round of 16. So #1 pool has essentially duked it out for finals seeding already (better venue planning), and to see who they go up against 16, 15,etc etc. Actually I think I might prefer a single pool round for seeding, and introduce the home and away for Ro16, quarters, and semis (stuffs up venue hire). General idea to produce the most competitive matches possible until the random knockout phase, and fix the random lottery of which two teams get ranked higher after pool play, and also keep the system identical for the Challenge Cup so everthing is succinct. Top T2 side promoted from last year to make 16 in Challenge Cup

207 Go to comments
J
JW 10 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I had a look at the wiki article again, it's all terribly old data (not that I'd see reason for much change in the case of SA).

Number Of Clubs:

1526

Registered+Unregistered Players:

651146

Number of Referees:

3460

Pre-teen Male Players:

320842

Pre-teen Female Player:

4522

Teen Male Player:

199213

Teen Female Player:

4906

Senior Male Player:

113174

Senior Female Player:

8489

Total Male Player:

633229

Total Female Player:

17917


So looking for something new as were more concerned with adults specifically, so I had a look at their EOY Financial Review.

The total number of clubs remains consistent, with a marginal increase of 1% from 1,161 to 1,167. 8.1.

A comparative analysis of verified data for 2022 and 2023 highlights a marginal decline of 1% in the number of female players, declining from 6,801 to 6,723. Additionally, the total number of players demonstrates an 8% decrease, dropping from 96,172 to 88,828.

So 80k+ adult males (down from 113k), but I'm not really sure when youth are involved with SAn clubs, or if that data is for some reason not being referenced/included. 300k male students however (200k in old wiki data).


https://resources.world.rugby/worldrugby/document/2020/07/28/212ed9cf-cd61-4fa3-b9d4-9f0d5fb61116/P56-57-Participation-Map_v3.pdf has France at 250k registered but https://presse-europe1-fr.translate.goog/exclu-europe-1-le-top-10-des-sports-les-plus-pratiques-en-france-en-2022/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp has them back up at 300k registered.


The French number likely Students + Club, but everyone collects data different I reckon. In that WR pdf for instance a lot of the major nations have a heavily registered setup, were as a nation like England can penetrate into a lot more schools to run camps and include them in the reach of rugby. For instance the SARU release says only 29% of schools are reached by proper rugby programs, where as the 2million English number would be through a much much higer penetration I'd imagine. Which is thanks to schools having the ability to involve themselves in programs more than anything.


In any case, I don't think you need to be concerned with the numbers, whether they are 300 or 88k, there is obviously a big enough following for their pro scenes already to have enough quality players for a 10/12 team competition. They appear ibgger than France but I don't really by the lower English numbers going around.

207 Go to comments
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