A riddle: when is a blank sheet of paper not a blank sheet of paper? As Eddie Jones will have found out once he took over as head coach and started thinking about which players to select for his England squad, the answer is: when it is handed to you by the Rugby Football Union.
Nothing is ever straightforward where Twickenham is concerned and Jones will have discovered that, rather than starting from scratch, he can make only 10 changes to the 33-man elite player squad left over by Stuart Lancaster, unless he wants to make his employers foot a rather large bill in compensation to the clubs for extra changes.
The good thing for Jones is that wholesale changes are unnecessary. He has to name his EPS on 6 January so he has about a month to get up to speed with England’s best talent, but I think the task is straightforward as there is no obvious need to change even 10 of them. Lancaster’s squad selection was not the problem: game selection was his weakness. I don’t think there is a pundit in the world who was massively away from his World Cup selection.
Jones has strongly indicated that his focus will be on getting the team winning immediately rather than focusing on the future. This would mean sticking with tried-and-trusted players, but the good news is that this need not suggest short-termism because many of the players best placed to win matches now are also well placed to be around at the next World Cup in four years’ time. Some of the five or six changes I can see being made will, though, give us an indication about what style of rugby Jones is going to bring, and it will surprise nobody when I say the key areas are the centres and the back row. In the centre will he be prepared to play Henry Slade? Is Elliot Daly in the mix? If these two are being looked at, then the aim is a fluid passing game. Jonathan Joseph was central to England’s attack before the World Cup but he is injured long-term and it will be a huge step back to go for a centre partnership that is just about defence, as happened when Brad Barritt and Sam Burgess lined up against Wales. Burgess has already gone and I cannot see a place for Barritt in an Eddie Jones back line.
It will be interesting to see if he names Manu Tuilagi, who is expected to be fit in the new year, but Luther Burrell may well miss out. I think he represented the best that Lancaster’s approach could achieve, and he did very well within that, but I think Jones may well move past him. If Burrell is missing on 6 January, it suggests Jones is moving beyond a typically English gainline-focused strategy. One knock-on effect of more creative centres could be the demise of Mike Brown at full-back. The Harlequin has been perhaps England’s best player for the past couple of years but he is a very Six Nations type of player – good under the high ball, brave and a powerful runner. Passing is not his strength and, if Alex Goode is selected ahead of him, it would suggest a more fluid way of thinking.
George Ford is often seen as the more creative fly-half option, as opposed to the goal-kicking defender Owen Farrell, but I don’t see that there is a such split. They are both excellent players and Farrell plays some lovely attacking stuff for Saracens. The choice between them is a nice problem to have. A more difficult area is the back row. Lancaster’s openside and captain, Chris Robshaw, is constantly criticised for not being a fetcher like David Pocock, and Jones was very critical of him at the World Cup. But the fact is that Robshaw is still one of the best back-rows in England, just not in the mould of a Pocock or Richie McCaw. If you want the sort of No7 who goes in hard and gets over the ball, and Jones has hinted that he might, then the English pool is small. You are looking at Matt Kvesic at Gloucester, Will Fraser at Saracens and potentially Jack Clifford at Harlequins. If he does go for this sort of player, the back row will need some extra bulk and Dave Ewers has been in excellent form for Exeter. Jones has said he is happy to be limited to picking players based in England, but some people still see Steffon Armitage as the answer to all our woes. The Toulon openside/No8 barely got a sniff against Wasps last Sunday and was taken off after 51 minutes.
Other areas of the side will receive attention – Joe Simpson’s form at scrum-half for Wasps in Europe demands consideration and Dave Attwood would beef up the front five – but the back row and centres are likely to prove the defining areas for Jones.
You may have noticed that most of the names I have mentioned were at the World Cup, and I think this highlights that we basically know who England’s best players are. There will be the odd surprise but the basics seem clear.
The problem is working out how to get the best out of them, and that is the riddle Jones has to solve.
