1 Coaching panel
Eddie Jones’ first job is to assemble a coaching panel and he will feel some pressure to go English. Steve Borthwick, who has just taken up a job at Bristol, is an obvious choice and worked wonders with Jones in charge of Japan’s forwards at the World Cup but he may not be comfortable returning to the RFU to coach players he played alongside. Alex Sanderson cut his teeth as a forwards coach with Jones at Queensland and Saracens and may be more ready to join the band. Shaun Edwards has yet to sign a new contract with Wales and would bring extensive experience of the international and English club scenes. Candidates for backs/skills coach, though, are less obvious. That may spell a reprieve for Mike Catt. Mark Mapletoft and Alex King would be adventurous alternatives.
2 Captaincy
We can be confident Jones will want to appoint a captain but here the candidates really are thin on the ground. Chris Robshaw is a superb player but he is not exactly Churchillian and has never looked comfortable as the team’s leader. Who else then? Dylan Hartley has the fire, but his would be a controversial and potentially dangerous appointment. Tom Wood is eloquent but not sure of his place. Joe Launchbury looks a leader on the field but is shy off it. Mike Brown is a loose cannon. Nick Easter 10 years ago would have been it, but surely not now. Which leaves Ben Youngs. Not exactly Johnsonian in stature but it’s not too much of a stretch, is it, to imagine the scrum-half as a captain in the mould of George Gregan, Jones’s captain in 2003?
3 Relationship with clubs
This is the one area the doomsayers point to as impossible to negotiate. But, let’s face it, it could be worse – look at France. The relationship between England’s clubs and the RFU has been relatively harmonious during the eight-year life span of the Heads of Agreement. That deal expires at the end of this season. Any arguments over the new one are likely to focus on the structure of the English league rather than the availability of its players. Perhaps we’re attaching too much significance to Jones’s year at Saracens, but it began in 2008 at the start of the current deal so he already knows how it works from one side. There is talk of a new director of sport to help out with the suit-and-briefcase stuff. Jake White has been mentioned but he has no experience of how rugby works in England. Sir Clive Woodward does – and apparently the animosity between him and Jones circa 2003 was all an act – but the RFU would be reluctant. Then there’s one Rob Andrew, who negotiated the current deal. Oh, and a certain Stuart Lancaster.
4 The midfield
No single department has caused a coach more problems than the midfield caused Stuart Lancaster. Indeed, it’s not too much of an exaggeration to say it cost him his job. More specifically, the question of inside-centre. So troubling was it that they airlifted in some bloke from another sport to fill the jersey for England’s most important match this side of Armageddon. They won’t be doing that again. Henry Slade looks the perfect fit, especially if his goal-kicking holds up at the highest level. Jones just has to convince Exeter to stop playing him anywhere in the midfield but 12. Jones will find two excellent young candidates at 10 as well as two at 13 (if the injury clouds that seem to follow Jonathan Joseph and Manu Tuilagi ever clear). Turn Slade into a goal-kicking Will Greenwood and he could have a midfield to settle on.
5 The overseas question
Jones has expressed admiration for Steffon Armitage but he’ll need more than Giteau’s Law to engineer that selection. The arguments will rage across the land on this. Nevertheless, discouraging prime assets from going anywhere near the animals that are the French clubs is an eminently sensible position for England to adopt. New Zealand have the same policy. And, for all that they’ve tweaked it, so do Australia. That said, if they must introduce a similar tweak, Toby Flood has 60 caps (Armitage has five). And he’s a goal-kicking 12.
6 Playing style
After an encouragingly adventurous couple of years England reverted to type at the World Cup and were pilloried for it. Then came the backlash against the backlash when they were counselled against playing like New Zealand for the sake of it. Jones has quite a balance to strike here but he is expert at assessing his resources and plotting accordingly. The job he did making the most of his Japan players is what has won him this role. With England he will inherit a team of pace and youth who, six months ago at least, had a set piece to reckon with. He should be able to make something of that.
