It will be back to basics for England when they return to Twickenham for the first time since their disastrous World Cup campaign. All the carefully thought-out touches of the Stuart Lancaster regime have been excised: the motivational messages on the wall, the long walk through the cheering crowds.
“It’s all hype,” is Dylan Hartley’s assessment of such peripherals. “It’s all sideshow. The support is brilliant and I love the fact we’re in our changing rooms on familiar territory, our turf. But it’s not the game. I’ve talked to the senior players, and we want to get into the changing room and get the job under way. We can see out the windows of the bus that the support’s there. The bus will stop wherever it stops, the closest we can get. We’re still going to walk through the crowd. All we are worrying about is winning.”
Once inside, the changing room will be stripped back. There is a wall of graphics on the right-hand side as the players enter, which presumably cost money so will still have images on it, but Hartley is not bothered by what those might be. “I don’t know. I haven’t been consulted. But again, it’s just a changing room. Come match day I’m not thinking too much about what’s written on the wall.”
If the Rugby Football Union has tried to engineer as stark a break as possible with the Lancaster era, it could not have made a much bolder statement than to choose Eddie Jones as his successor. The airwaves have been buzzing with the feisty Australian’s quips. Whether these tumble from his mouth by accident or design we may never know; whether they work or not we will discover in time. So far so good. Against Scotland the line was that England were underdogs; against Italy it was that he wanted his team to administer a “good hiding”. If Lancaster’s patriotic touches have been abandoned, Jones has also revelled in devil-may-care antics that are no less of a break with his predecessor’s methods.
After the contention last week that England have no world-class players, this week the focus has centred on the medical condition of Johnny Sexton. Ireland’s captain, Rory Best, is as dismissive of these peripherals as Hartley is of Lancaster’s. “Everything else apart from the rugby is a sideshow. There are lot of things that go on. It is a big world now and you hear snippets, but it is something we try not to do. It’s just not the way we go about our business. We give the opposition the utmost respect by doing our analysis and homework behind closed doors.”
Which leaves the small matter of what happens on the field. If Jones’s regime has begun with success, so has that of his deputy, Paul Gustard, in charge of the defence. England are the only side yet to concede a try this Six Nations. Even here, the Lancaster way has been dismantled. Under the previous regime the Arthur Harrison award was presented after each match to the defensive man of the match, in honour of the only England international to win the Victoria Cross. Nowadays, they tackle rampaging behemoths for a bag of sweets. “It’s costing me a fortune,” Gustard said. “They have been rewarded. They’ve had some sweets.”
None will have deserved their treats more than George Ford. Sexton might have been singled out in Jones’s latest media briefing, but Ford will be the most obvious target on the field for Stuart McCloskey, the 17st centre making his Ireland debut at No12 – simply because he is the smallest. “David didn’t have a problem with Goliath, did he?” Gustard said.
Notwithstanding the physical mismatch, Ford’s defensive capabilities are highly thought of and he will not be hidden. “Different coaches adopt different philosophies,” Gustard said. “The Australians try to disguise their 10 and move him around. Sale tried to do that with Charlie [Hodgson], but I don’t think it works. It creates an unnecessary stigma for somebody and puts them in a position where they are uncomfortable. George has defended at 10 all his life, and he will continue to do so for me.” Back to basics indeed.
