Northern Edition

Select Edition

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

Eddie Jones forced to self-isolate for 10 days after England assistant coach tests positive

(Photo by Dave Rogers/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

England head coach Eddie Jones has been forced to self-isolate for ten days after his assistant coach Matt Proudfoot tested positive for Covid-19. The Rugby Football Union has announced that Jones is not displaying any symptoms and if he returns a negative at the next round of testing, he will join up with the squad at St George’s Park on January 28, a day after the squad assembles. 

ADVERTISEMENT

An RFU statement read: “England coach Matt Proudfoot has tested positive for Covid-19 and is self-isolating.  The test was carried out as part of England’s tournament testing regime for the upcoming Guinness Six Nations.  He is not displaying any symptoms.

“Head coach Eddie Jones and Simon Amor have been identified as contacts and will also isolate for a ten-day period, in accordance with government guidelines.

Video Spacer

Goodbye 2020 – The RugbyPass highlights!

Video Spacer

Goodbye 2020 – The RugbyPass highlights!

“England players will meet at St George’s Park on Wednesday, January 27. Following further negative tests, Jones and Amor will join up with the group on Thursday, January 28, in line with government regulation.”

Jones is due to name his 28-man Six Nations squad this Friday. He is already short a coach for the championship as it was announced on Monday that it would be best for new full-time skills coach Jason Ryles not to fly in from Australia due to the ongoing pandemic restrictions. It leaves defence coach John Mitchell as the current last man standing for England. 

The English open their campaign a February 6 home match at Twickenham versus Scotland and Jones had been busy attending club games to monitor players. His last match was last Saturday’s Trailfinders Cup between where Billy Vunipola was in action for Saracens against Ealing in his first outing since England won the Autumn Nations Cup final against France in early December.

With England limited to a squad of 28 for the upcoming Six Nations, Jones is expected to largely stick by the same group of players throughout the championship to limit their movement in and out of camp.

ADVERTISEMENT

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
Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING Everyone is saying the same thing after agonising England loss Everyone is saying the same thing after agonising England loss
Search