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Stand by for more boring England rugby: 'You never want your attack to be in place too far ahead of the World Cup'
By Liam Heagney
Eddie Jones has revealed he is no hurry to finesse the England attack any time soon, claiming that defence and breakdown are the priorities as they seek to add an Autumn Nations Cup title to the Six Nations trophy they clinched last month.
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Despite recent wins over Italy, Georgia and Ireland, England have been criticised for lacking front foot flair. It wasn’t until near the finish that they finally managed to secure the four-try bonus point necessary for them to win the Six Nations.
They were also heavily dependant on their pack against Georgia, hooker Jamie George walking away with a try hat-trick off the maul, while they were content last weekend allow Ireland to have the majority share of possession in a contest where Jonny May’s second try was the only real piece of jump-from-your-seat excitement.
Coach Jones, though, has headed to Llanelli to take on Wales this Saturday not the slightest bit worried about the limited England approach with the ball in hand, claiming it’s not something he will focus in on massively until the 2023 World Cup in France is on the horizon.
“You never want your attack to be in place too far ahead of the World Cup because you’re giving the opposition too much chance,” explained the England coach a year on from his team’s 2019 defeat in the final to South Africa.
"The back row, Underhill and Curry, what did they make, 7,400 tackles or something between them? It's just madness"
– Last weekend's action didn't have the @TheRugbyPod jumping from its seat #AutumnNationsCuphttps://t.co/368188OPty
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) November 24, 2020
“What you want your attack to be is predictable to you and unpredictable to the opposition. Attack is always the last thing you develop before a World Cup campaign because you want to go into that with an attack that is unpredictable to the opposition.
“The more you become successful the more you become analysed – now you even get analysed on what you say during the game. No one used ever analyse those things but now those things get analysed.
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“You do a good play or your play a certain shape and it’s on every website. Every coach is looking at it, tearing it apart, so attack is something you want to build up very slowly and ultimately we want to win the World Cup. That is the main goal but for this week we just need our attack to be good enough for the game.
“We aspire to be the greatest team, we want to be one of those teams where people sit around the pub and they speak about the England team of the 2020s as being one of those great teams that people wanted to watch, that they play with such passion and pride and intensity that it made you jump out of your chair and made you want to watch them play.
“We can’t control when that can happen but we are working towards that as hard as we can and there is building blocks to building a team. In Test match rugby you have got to have your defence and set-piece in play and the last building block is always attack and that comes on the back of having a great set-piece and a great defence.”
"Every team has got its big explosive ball carriers that grab the limelight, but who’s resourcing rucks, who’s doing that nitty gritty, the boring stuff?"#AutumnNationsCup #WALvENG ???????https://t.co/pJiq6LBGTe
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) November 26, 2020
