Even Japan’s finest origami artists would be impressed by the amount of time Eddie Jones has devoted to one single sheet of paper. For almost four years England’s head coach has been obsessed with trying to build a team capable of winning the 2019 Rugby World Cup final and his grand design has finally been unveiled.
The fact the 23-man matchday squad to face South Africa contained no surprises will satisfy Jones almost as much as the outstanding victory against New Zealand last weekend. This is not the week for hasty tucks and folds, with the past three tournament winners having all named unchanged XVs for the final. Only on the bench, where the unluckily injured Willi Heinz makes way for Ben Spencer, has Jones been forced into an 11th-hour tweak.
Will it will be enough to flatten a strong Springboks side? Jones, for richer or poorer, is exactly where he wants to be entering the final days of the tournament. Seven and a half months ago, after the madcap 38-38 draw with Scotland at Twickenham, he was publicly wondering if his players had the collective mental resilience to remain focused for 80 minutes. Now here they are, within one last heave of emulating Clive Woodward’s celebrated class of 2003.
Woodward, suitably enough, was to be found at the back of the packed hotel ballroom where England’s final team announcement was made. Having been taken to extra time by Australia in Sydney 16 years ago, no one is more conscious than Woodward that winning the Webb Ellis Cup can never be guaranteed and that the Springboks are not heading to Yokohama simply to admire England’s reconditioned chariot.
In Jones’s view, though, every end game is crucially shaped by the lessons learned en route. The uncomfortable home truths inflicted on England by the Scots, he believes, have been particularly crucial in propelling his side to where they are now, officially the world’s No 1-ranked side for the first time since June 2004.
“I don’t think anything is smooth,” he said. “Look at the journey of any team to the World Cup and there are always ups and downs. You get injuries, illness, players lose form, players get old that you didn’t expect to get old. You are continually trying to work out how you’re going to get the team better. As I always say, if coaching was that easy everyone would do it and they don’t.”
His past experience as the Wallabies coach narrowly beaten by Woodward’s England has also taught him that craving something too badly can be counter-productive. “If you’ve experienced a significant trauma in your sporting life, it takes time to get over it. I didn’t realise what an effect 2003 had on me until possibly 2007. You think everything is all right but you lose a World Cup final and it’s a difficult experience.
“If you don’t reflect really well, which I didn’t after that World Cup, then you carry some things with you. They can be negative and they have an effect on how you approach your job.” Such as? “You can’t be too desperate for things. Instead you’ve got to have the will to prepare to win, which is different. It takes time sometimes. You want to get rid of that memory and it doesn’t happen like that. You’ve got to work again and build it up.”
The net result is that Jones has been mentally preparing for this occasion for four years. Crucially he also wanted his players to embrace a traditional English power game, having been told by one of football’s more experienced managers that his tactical blueprint had to be tailored to the cultural strengths of the group at his disposal. “One of the best conversations I ever had was about two years ago with [the former Manchester United manager] Louis van Gaal. Since then the players have evolved the tactics. I said when I first took over that my job’s to become redundant. And I’m almost redundant now. The team’s running the team, which is how it should be.”
Jones, in summary, is confident England will run out channelling the indomitable spirit of Martin Johnson, Lawrence Dallaglio, Jason Leonard et al rather than shrinking from either the physical challenge or the big occasion. It is certainly a boost that the tight-head prop Kyle Sinckler is available to start after limping off early in the second half against the All Blacks. By retaining George Ford at fly-half alongside Owen Farrell at 12, Jones has also served notice that England feel they have the tactical variation to outflank the big South Africa pack and a kicking game which can pressurise the opposing back three.
It also happens to be the youngest starting XV in a World Cup final for 24 years, with elder statesmen such as Dylan Hartley, Chris Robshaw, Mike Brown and Ben Te’o having been superseded. The transformation has been so striking that the side’s fifth-place finish in the 2018 Six Nations now seems even stranger than it did at the time.
England, however, will still have to dig deep to subdue a Springbok team bolstered by the return on the wing of the electric Cheslin Kolbe, the only change to the side that edged out Wales in the semi-final. “We have to go out there and take the game to South Africa,” said Jones, who will be taking charge of England for the 50th time.
“There has been no higher expectation than within the team. We started out [in early 2016] wanting to be the best team in the world. Three weeks ago we were hopeless, I was going to get the sack, Owen couldn’t kick a goal [in the Argentina game]. So we don’t tend to listen to the external noise. The boys know what’s ahead of them, everyone knows what’s at stake.”
