England and Wales are not to start their autumn international campaigns until Saturday but the week’s spiciest contest may well unfold in Bristol on Monday morning. A live scrummaging session involving both countries’ packs certainly has all the necessary ingredients, with the England head coach, Eddie Jones, saying the Anglo-Welsh showdown will shape his front-row Test selection.
Perhaps sensibly, the exercise is being held behind closed doors given the precedent set by other sides in similar circumstances. As recently as this summer, a joint pre-season session involving Bath and Newport Gwent Dragons erupted when Tom Dunn, an England squad member, appeared to head butt his opposite number Rhys Buckley. The footage of both sets of forwards subsequently trading blows has been widely shared online.
With the England captain, Dylan Hartley, also directly up against Ken Owens, among those picked ahead of him for the British and Irish Lions tour last summer, and the Exeter prop Harry Williams predicting things “could easily kick off”, it is fortunate that the world’s leading referee, Nigel Owens, will also be on hand. There are many within the England set-up, nevertheless, who will be very surprised if the session passes off without a murmur.
Among them is Jason Ryles, the Australian rugby league coach hired by Jones to run an eye over England’s defensive technique. Ryles, a former Kangaroos forward who played 270 NRL games, is no stranger to a spot of biff in the 13-man code and recalls a joint session involving his former club Melbourne Storm and the Canterbury Bulldogs which degenerated very quickly. “A couple of years ago the Storm trained against the Bulldogs and it didn’t work,” Ryles said.
“It was a good concept which started out at two-handed touch then went to bumping shoulders then suddenly it was all on. It didn’t really work. England and Wales are both looking to improve their scrummaging but with the Bulldogs it was just that little bit too competitive to say the least.”
Williams, whose Exeter team-mate Tomas Francis will also be involved, is similarly not expecting a mellow, uneventful morning. “It’s going to be full on, isn’t it? They’re a rival nation. When the time comes, you’ve just got to rip into it as hard as you can. It could easily kick off. We should have armed policemen as we’re walking out. Chains and stuff. Let’s really build it up: The Battle of Bristol. Tom Francis sent me an article about it last week, saying: ‘See you in Bristol’. You get used to training against your team-mates and you rarely go full on. But if you’re against a different team or nation there’s a lot of added intensity.”
The history of Wales-England sporting rivalry is not exactly bereft of needle, although the importance of absolute discipline in the professional era has curtailed many of rugby’s worst excesses. Jones is more focused on the immediate future, with this weekend’s opponents Argentina also occupying the same pool at the 2019 Rugby World Cup, and believes the potential benefits of a full-on session with the Welsh outweighs any other concerns.
“We want to be the best scrum in the world,” Jones stressed. “We just feel there’s a certain amount of familiarity to scrummaging against each other. We need our scrummaging to go to another level so we want to be challenged in that area. Wales have a good scrum and that will bring something different to our scrummaging.”
With Williams pushing Dan Cole for the starting tight-head role and the combustible up-and-coming Leicester loose-head Ellis Genge also among those involved, Jones hopes the session will provide him with some clear pointers as he looks to identify his preferred front-row to face the Pumas. “It’s a training session but we want them to be 100%, absolutely 100%,” said Jones, once a spiky hooker himself for the Randwick club in Sydney. “It’s a great chance for young guys like Harry and Ellis to show what they’ve worked on for their clubs.”
On this occasion the 24-year-old Dunn, still uncapped but a player whose attitude Jones clearly likes, will remain in Bagshot for separate training. Hartley and Jamie George may be England’s two main hookers but Dunn, in the absence of the injured Luke Cowan-Dickie and Tommy Taylor, could feature at some stage this autumn. “Tom Dunn is doing exceptionally,” Jones said. “He is probably one of the most driven guys in the squad. No flair, just hard, nuggety, real old-fashioned. He looks old fashioned and he plays and trains like that. He is pushing the other two guys really hard.”
England’s backs, probably to their relief, will be left behind in Bagshot to prepare for the Argentina game in relative peace, along with Elliot Daly who has been included despite his recent knee injury. Jones is not due to confirm his starting XV until Thursday, with many of this summer’s Test Lions in New Zealand unlikely to feature in all three autumn internationals.
