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'He gave me my greatest moment in an England shirt… I do owe a lot to him'

(Photo by David Rogers - RFU/The RFU Collection via Getty Imagesges)

Veteran halfback Danny Care has revealed what message he sent to outgoing England coach Eddie Jones after it was confirmed the rugby guru had been axed by the RFU.

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It was confirmed earlier this week by the Welsh Rugby Union that Warren Gatland would be replacing Wayne Pivac as Wales’ head coach, and England made a major coaching announcement of their own shortly after which added to the drama.

After seven years in charge of the England team, which included three Six Nations titles and a Rugby World Cup final, supercoach Jones had been released from his duties.

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While the decision was somewhat expected following a disastrous Autumn Nations Series campaign, it was still a major call to make with the World Cup just nine months away.

It wasn’t that long ago that Jones’ England team were the best in the world.

But that’s just a memory now.

Fast forward a few years and England are fifth in the world, but their recent form is especially worrying for a nation with genuine World Cup ambitions and dreams.

England only won one of their four tests during November, which was a 39 point demolition of Japan. While an incredible nine minute blitz saw them salvage a stunning draw against New Zealand, a loss to South Africa the week after seemingly sealed Jones’ fate.

But in the wake of this major decision, some applause and praise needs to follow one of the greatest coaches to have ever graced our game.

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Speaking BBC’s Rugby Union Daily, former England scrum-half Danny Care thanked Jones for giving him his “greatest moment in an England shirt.”

“Everyone’s gonna have a different relationship with Eddie. My relationship with Eddie, although people think it probably isn’t good, I think we’re actually in quite a good spot,” Care said.

“I dropped him a text today just to say thanks for everything you did for me, I wish him all the best in the future… hopefully we can share a bottle of wine at some point.

“He gave me my greatest moment in an England shirt, he gave me that start in the Grand Slam game (against Scotland in 2016).

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“I do owe a lot to him, obviously I didn’t play for a few years under him but he also gave me my best moment in an England shirt.

“For me he’ll always be thought of highly in my thoughts as one of my greatest coaches I’ve ever worked with.”

While Care has been in and out of the national squad, he was included in the England team to tour Down Under to Australia earlier this year.

England had never won a series in Australia against the Wallabies before Jones took over, but he rewrote history in his first year in-charge – and did so again in his last.

Reflecting on what that tour was like, Care said nobody thought that Jones wouldn’t be at the World Cup following the successful trip to the sports mad nation.

“Everything was still talking about the World Cup, and this team that is on this path to hopefully winning the World Cup, Obviously you never thought that the head coach wouldn’t be there to see it through after being there for seven years,” he added.

“We were pretty successful in Australia. Won the series, could’ve won that series 3-nil on another day.

“Obviously England haven’t played as well as we should’ve the last few years but I think everyone’s still probably in a little bit of shock that they’ve decided to pull the trigger.”

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Flankly 50 minutes 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
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Nickers 59 minutes ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

I thought we made a lot of progress against that type of defence by the WC last year. Lots of direct running and punching holes rather than using width. Against that type of defence I think you have to be looking to kick on first phase when you have front foot ball which we did relatively successfully. We are playing a lot of rugby behind the gain line at the moment. They are looking for those little interchanges for soft shoulders and fast ball or off loads but it regularly turns into them battering away with slow ball and going backwards, then putting in a very rushed kick under huge pressure.


JB brought that dimension when he first moved into 12 a couple of years ago but he's definitely not been at his best this year. I don't know if it is because he is being asked to play a narrow role, or carrying a niggle or two, but he does not look confident to me. He had that clean break on the weekend and stood there like he was a prop who found himself in open space and didn't know what to do with the ball. He is still a good first phase ball carrier though, they use him a lot off the line out to set up fast clean ball, but I don't think anyone is particularly clear on what they are supposed to do at that point. He was used really successfully as a second playmaker last year but I don't think he's been at that role once this year. He is a triple threat player but playing a very 1 dimensional role at the moment. He and Reiko have been absolutely rock solid on defence which is why I don't think there will be too much experimentation or changes there.

43 Go to comments
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