As Eddie Jones explained his England midfield selection for the Argentina Test there were echoes of the Exeter director of rugby, Rob Baxter, from a few seasons ago. When someone looks, plays and behaves like a top player, even if he is not the established first choice, Baxter reckons international coaches should trust their own eyes. Jones, in naming Henry Slade at 12 against the Pumas on Saturday, has done precisely that.
It is possible for even the most experienced head coaches to lose sight of what really matters in the blizzard of wellness stats, hydration readings and assorted other supposedly essential facts they are now buried beneath on a daily basis. Jones complained to his squad in their morning meeting that he is starting to feel like the team’s data analyst but he scarcely needed a spreadsheet to identify the most enticing replacement for the rested Owen Farrell.
Slade is not the biggest, heaviest, quickest or the most prolific try-scorer to play centre for England but his work on the training field and domestic form for the Chiefs has ultimately trumped all else. As Jones acknowledged, the 24-year-old has “got everything there is … he’s got nice feet, good balance, a good head on him, some speed, courage.” Which begs the obvious question: why has he never started for England at inside-centre before?
Jones, it turns out, has been pondering the same thing ever since Slade performed so well in England’s World Cup warmup Test against France at Twickenham in 2015 that he propelled Sam Burgess, his midfield partner that day, into Stuart Lancaster’s final squad. “I remember seeing this kid who had feet, nice balance and speed,” Jones said. “Then I didn’t see him again. I thought he’d been taken somewhere.”
Admittedly Slade, by his own admission, took a while to shake off the mental and physical after-effects of the horrible lower leg fracture he suffered at Wasps in December 2015 but until this summer’s tour to Argentina he had not started a match for his country since the Uruguay pool game in Manchester that concluded Lancaster’s tenure.
Despite the Chiefs’ walking off with last year’s Premiership title, Jones’s niggling doubt was the Devonian’s work rate off the ball, regardless of his priceless, rare gift of time on it. “Sometimes those really talented kids don’t understand how you have to work hard, to change that talent into consistent performance,” Jones said. “He’s really learned that.”
All it took, in the end, was one specific measurement to back up Jones’s intensifying gut feeling. “One of the most important stats we collect is on high-speed running. Imagine we kick the ball and you have to sprint after that ball. Then the ball goes back over your head and you’ve got to sprint back. He was the lowest in our team 12 months ago. On Tuesday he was the highest. He’s learned he has to do the small things well and he’s done that brilliantly.”
It did no harm that Slade started both wins against the Pumas. Coincidence or not, England have also won all seven of his Tests. The next task is to make it impossible for Jones to drop him, regardless of who may be available to face Australia, and his new midfield partner, Jonathan Joseph, certainly sounds excited. “I’m really looking forward to playing with him,” said the Bath centre. “Something special could work there. His distribution, his ability to see space … it’s what outside-backs thrive off.”
If it does work, with George Ford pulling the strings and Elliot Daly and Anthony Watson creating havoc out wide, Jones will have some tricky calls to make. He is hardly going to omit Farrell but the Saracen feels happiest at 10, which would mean dropping Ford to the bench. And what about Ben Te’o, Manu Tuilagi, Alex Lozowski and Piers Francis, to mention just four other candidates for the No12 jersey? Even Slade would be unwise to assume anything yet.
“This is Sladey’s opportunity to show he can be a third choice at 12 – or one of the choices at 12,” said Jones, reserving the right to keep his options open.
What Jones describes as a “sparring match” in the buildup to the “heavyweight contests in the 2019 World Cup” will certainly be a significant one for south Devon with the Teignmouth-reared Sam Simmonds set to win his first cap off the bench after the unlucky Tom Curry damaged a wrist in training.
Above all else, however, Jones wants his pack to come snorting out of the autumn blocks – “That’s where the game is won or lost … if you get good quality ball then the little guys can run with it” – and not to underestimate Argentina.
“They know if they beat England at Twickenham then their whole season turns around. They’ll go back to Buenos Aires, sit on the beach as heroes and everyone will want to buy them a beer and a steak,” he said.
England, having defeated the Pumas three times this year, want their visitors to return home empty-handed once again.
