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The 'discreet' opinion Jones has formed about Rennie's Australia
By Liam Heagney
Eddie Jones believes that rugby in Australia is in a very different place compared to the last time England toured his native country to take on the Wallabies. Travelling down under as the Six Nations champions in 2016, the English recorded a 3-0 Test series victory over a Wallabies team that was under the baton of Michael Cheika at the time.
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Cheika has since taken on the role of coaching Argentina, with Dave Rennie succeeding him with the Wallabies, and England boss Jones has contrasted what faced his team six years ago with what they are likely to come across in July.
“Australia are in a different position now than they were in 2016,” said Jones on Tuesday after he unveiled a 36-strong mini-camp training squad that will begin tour preparations next Sunday in London.
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“They were an established team coming off the back of a World Cup final where they had done exceedingly well. If you look at the Super Rugby teams at the moment they are very young teams with a lot of good young players coming through.
“I am not going to try and pick Dave Rennie’s team for him but it looks like they will have a fairly young team that will play that traditional Dave Rennie type of rugby, a lot of ball movement, a lot of sequence plays, so the challenge in the game will be different and the game is changing considerably.
“The game is getting more discreet. I watched a (Super Rugby Pacific) game on Saturday, the first half took 65 minutes because the referee went to the TMO for nearly every decision so the game is becoming more powerful with shorter blocks of intense periods of play – so it is much different from when we went there in 2016.
“We have got to make sure that we prepare well for that sort of rugby. Fast pitches, the first game is in Perth, it’s an AFL ground, very fast, they are going to have 60,000 screaming Australians there. They have already sold the game out. It’s fantastic for rugby.”
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Wallabies will win because it will have the players that beat the World Champ Boks with cricket scores. England is definitely a weaker team because the 2016 whitewash was on the back of the Grandslam team. Good luck England. you will need it.