England play France at the Stade de France today in their Six Nations opener with many of the side that were blown away in the World Cup Final against South Africa and that will come as something of a disappointment to many England fans. The fantastic win against the All Blacks in the Wold Cuo semi-final will count for nothing should England fail to win in Paris today and indeed fail to win a grand slam.
England’s supporters want to see progression from their Head Coach and while I applaud the selection of Furbank at full back I am at a loss to see the inclusion of Ben Youngs, George Ford and Joe Marler to name but three. If we start with Youngs who had a dreadful World Cup Final and is not getting any younger and in my opinion should have been replaced by Ben Spencer of Saracens who is a much more dynamic player and one who is surely the future. While George Ford is great with ball in hand when your pack is dominant he remains a casualty in defence when playing against sides with a power game; which South Africa bought with such devastating efficiency in that World Cup Final, but the biggest mystery of all is the selection of Joe Marler at prop. Jones’s decision to take Cole and Marler to the World Cup ultimately cost them a tournament win with England conceding penalty after penalty at the scrum, most of which were by Dan Cole. We will remember the tries run in at the end of the game but South Africa were out of sight at this point and England were playing desperation rugby. In the Autumn Internationals of 2018 England deployed Harry Williams and Ben Moon of Exeter Chiefs at prop with Ben Moon running Mark Wilson very close as player of the series. During the game against South Africa at Twickenham both props performed strongly against a very similar pack to the one which appeared in the World Cup Final and it remains a mystery to my why Jones has reverted to players who are certainly not regarded as being at the top of their game any longer in the scrum, both of whom offer little or nothing in the loose when compared to either Mako Vunipola or Kyle Sinckler.
Owen Farrell is England’s captain and best 10 and had Henry Slade been fit I am sure we would have seen Farrell at 10 today with Tuilagi and Slade in the centre. Elliot Daly, who has failed to convince under the high ball at full back has been moved to the wing but I think he would have been better employed today back in his old position at outside centre.
Charlie Ewels is also a surprise starter at lock in place of the favoured George Kruis but he is a selection for the future along with Sam Simmons at 8, who can consider himself very unlucky not to have got the call following the injury to Billy Vunipola with Tom Curry packing down at 8 and Courtenay Lawes on the blind side of the scrum.
The lack of Exeter players in England’s line up given their dominance in the Premiership remains something of a mystery to me although we have Luke Cowan-Dickie now joined by Ollie De Voto in the squad with Joe Simmons certainly worth a look as a back up at 10 and Jonny Hill in fine form at lock.
England must hope that they can surpress a very young French side who’s new coach Fabien Galthie has thrown caution to the wind in picking a side with the next World Cup in mind and it has been interesting to hear the usual Jones ‘kidology’ pre game in the hope of winding the opposition up and throwing them off their game.
Jones knows that sooner rather than later he must move to players who are going to carry England through to the next World Cup and he is arguably the coach who is underr the most pressure in this Six Nations campaign as Scotland are still building, Ireland have a new coach in the excellent Andy Farrell, Wales have a new coach in Wayne Pivac as do France. Not much is expected of Italy and therefore a Grand Slam win will be expected by England’s loyal followers and no doubt the decision makers at the RFU.
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