Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

'Billows of smoke, then all of a sudden it lit up in a huge fire'

(Photo by Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)

Eddie Jones has spoken about the Tuesday night fire drama that resulted in his England Six Nations squad evacuating from their seafront hotel in Brighton and holding a team meeting in a nearby pub before checking into a different hotel to spend the night. Ahead of the championship opener away to Scotland on February 5, Jones opted to begin preparations with a week-long gathering on the English south coast for his squad before the location switches next week to the national team training centre at Pennyhill Park. 

ADVERTISEMENT

England had spent their Tuesday morning on Brighton beach doing team-building exercises and their Six Nations squad were due to have a team communications meeting that evening when a fire broke out through a manhole on the street outside the Harbour Hotel on the King’s Road.    

The emergency caused the hotel to be evacuated, leaving the players to hold their planned meeting in a nearby pub before alternative accommodation was sourced for the night.   

Video Spacer

Eddie Jones announces a new generation England squad for the 2022 Six Nations

Video Spacer

Eddie Jones announces a new generation England squad for the 2022 Six Nations

“The players were getting ready for a team communications session which was all about them talking about their goals and purpose and just getting to know each other a little bit better,” explained England boss Jones on Wednesday about the drama that unfolded the previous evening for his Six Nations squad. 

“There were billows of smoke coming out of a manhole and then all of a sudden it lit up in a huge fire, like a bomb fire came out of the manhole so we had to evacuate the hotel. At one stage we were going to go to Cotswold and buy some sleeping bags but we have got a fantastic logistics manager in Charlotte Gibbons who arranged accommodation at Hilton. 

“The players and the staff ate separately because of the short circumstance and we got through the night and we are here today, mate. We are hopefully back in the hotel by midday and the boys will start doing a gym session this morning at Brighton College.  

“They [the players] weren’t close at all. It [the fire] was outside the hotel so there was no risk to any of the players,” continued Jones, adding how the players improvised by relocating their scheduled meeting elsewhere. “They ended up having it a pub and Maro (Itoje) took responsibility for it.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Jones enthused how he liked what sudden disruption does for his England squad in terms of improving its adaptability. “Everyone had to adapt, we have had to change our programme today, the players had to sleep in maybe uncomfortable beds last night and they have got to get on with it today. 

“We enjoy those sorts of things. Every time we do it we get a little bit better at it. We had a similar situation in 20019 with the typhoon at the World Cup where we had to move hotels quickly so the guys have been in that situation before helped lead the way.”

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

f
fl 1 hour ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

"Right, so even if they were the 4 worst teams in Champions Cup, you'd still have them back by default?"

I think (i) this would literally never happen, (ii) it technically couldn't quite happen, given at least 1 team would qualify via the challenge cup, so if the actual worst team in the CC qualified it would have to be because they did really well after being knocked down to the challenge cup.

But the 13th-15th teams could qualify and to be fair I didn't think about this as a possibility. I don't think a team should be able to qualify via the Champions Cup if they finish last in their group.


Overall though I like my idea best because my thinking is, each league should get a few qualification spots, and then the rest of the spots should go to the next best teams who have proven an ability to be competitive in the champions cup. The elite French clubs generally make up the bulk of the semi-final spots, but that doesn't (necessarily) mean that the 5th-8th best French clubs would be competitive in a slimmed down champions cup. The CC is always going to be really great competition from the semis onwards, but the issue is that there are some pretty poor showings in the earlier rounds. Reducing the number of teams would help a little bit, but we could improve things further by (i) ensuring that the on-paper "worst" teams in the competition have a track record of performing well in the CC, and (ii) by incentivising teams to prioritise the competition. Teams that have a chance to win the whole thing will always be incentivised to do that, but my system would incentivise teams with no chance of making the final to at least try to win a few group stage matches.


"I'm afraid to say"

Its christmas time; there's no need to be afraid!

119 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING Ian Foster: 'You kid yourself that we were robbed' Ian Foster: 'You kid yourself that we were robbed'
Search