Everything starts somewhere and, if one is looking to pinpoint the precise moment of England’s new beginning, it seems to have been at around six o’clock on a bleak and freezing day in Edinburgh, Saturday 6 February 2016. Scotland had not beaten England for eight years and many reckoned this to be their best chance in a long while. After 50 minutes there was a single point in it, the score 7-6. And then it happened. Mako Vunipola had the ball on Scotland’s 22. Finn Russell was closing in from the left, John Hardie from the right. But in the split-second before they hit, Vunipola performed a deft little conjuring trick, one a prop has no more right to know than the audience does a magician’s secrets.
Without turning his head, Vunipola flipped the ball behind his back to Owen Farrell, who passed it straight on again to Jack Nowell. He sprinted into the space Hardie had just vacated and scored the match-winning try. It was a dogfight of a match, one that could have gone either way, until Vunipola broke it open. So England, eighth in the world rankings going into that match, had begun their climb towards No2, where they now sit. Eddie Jones had spent only a fortnight with the team at that point. But no one ever accused him of being slow to know his own mind and he had already made many of the key decisions about England’s personnel and how he wanted them to play.
Dylan Hartley was brought back to be captain, Chris Robshaw was switched to the blindside flank, George Ford started at fly-half and Owen Farrell, Billy Vunipola and Mike Brown were named as the three vice-captains. Add to that Dan Cole at tighthead and Jonathan Joseph at outside centre. Every member of this core group of eight men was picked in the same position in 11, 12 or all 13 of the starting XVs Jones chose in 2016. All this is in sharp contrast with the previous year, when Stuart Lancaster still seemed to be making up his mind about who was in his best team even while the World Cup group stages were under way.
That clarity of thought showed in England’s approach, too. Jones said the first thing he wanted to do was improve England’s set-piece play. And the key reason they beat Scotland, Vunipola’s sorcery aside, was because of their work at the scrum and lineout – just as Jones wanted it to be. Everything England did, he said, would rest on the foundations laid up front. In their next game, a 40-9 victory over Italy, they started to show what else they could do. Jones encouraged a more direct style in attack, as opposed to the confused lateral back-and-forth that England lapsed into when they came under pressure in the World Cup.
Back at Twickenham their play was patchy against Ireland, whom they beat 21-10, and Wales, who pushed them as close as anyone but lost 25-21. They had to scramble through a poor final quarter against Ireland, when Josh van der Flier crossed their try line twice but the ball was held up both times. There was the first hint here of the wolfpack spirit instilled by the defence coach, Paul Gustard, which served England so well in the four Tests they played against Australia later in the year. Then came the grand slam game against France. Jones felt England came down with a dose of nerves. They were two points up with half an hour to play when Anthony Watson gathered in Ben Youngs’ grubber and beat Wesley Fofana to score in the corner, one of their best tries of the year.
So much for the Six Nations. Before the summer tour there was a one-off match against Wales, won 27-13, then a fortnight later the first Test against Australia in Brisbane. In the first 10 minutes England fell back to earth. They were 10 points down before 15 minutes had gone. It felt then as if the spring had been a false dawn, that despite the grand slam the gulf between the two hemispheres was every bit as wide as it had been in 2015. But England rallied, through another fine piece of footballing skill by Joseph, and a brilliant burst by James Haskell, playing as well now as he ever had in his long career. They won, in the end, 39-28.
The second Test, in Melbourne, was the one Jones picked as his favourite of the year. It was defined by a six-minute passage before half-time in which England held Australia at bay for 22 phases. George Kruis later singled this out as a “sliding doors” moment. “We managed to hold them out that long on our goalline. It just shows the culture behind it and everything comes into play in those dark few minutes,” Kruis said. “It stood there in a lot of people’s minds as a together moment.” The third Test, a game Jones says “they had no right to win” was just the cherry on top, a record-breaking 44-40 victory to complete the whitewash.
Then came the autumn with a first win against South Africa since 2006, followed by a 43-point thrashing of Fiji and, best yet, an against-the-odds victory over Argentina, achieved even though England played with 14 men for most of the game. The fourth and final win against Australia on Saturday meant that nine months and 28 days after that first win against Scotland England ended the year unbeaten. It is the first time they have won every game they have played in a calendar year since 1992 and the first time ever they have won every match in a season that was at least 10 games long. The World Cup is a long way off but England have taken 14 steps in the right direction.
