The end-of-season encounter with the Barbarians at Twickenham on Sunday will be no frolic for Eddie Jones. The England head coach is smarting from a Six Nations campaign that started positively before three successive defeats dumped the champions into fifth place, their lowest finish in the tournament.
The slump has not persuaded Jones that his squad needs an overhaul. While injuries and the unavailability of players from Saracens and Exeter, who were contesting the Premiership final on Saturday, forced him to delve into his supply cupboard for a team to face the Barbarians, he says he knows 70% of the players who will be going to the World Cup next year and that what he needs to assess is the back-up.
Elliot Daly picked ahead of Danny Cipriani at full-back for England
“We have 22 players currently unavailable and that leaves a hole,” says Jones, who is using this weekend to decide who will replace the injured Cameron Redpath and Jack Willis in the squad for next month’s tour to South Africa.
“New guys have an opportunity but it will also be about how the 22 come back. We know our best players and probably our best team but, outside the top 23, players have an opportunity to put up their hands. We are always open to new talent coming through.
“Our reflection on the Six Nations has been positive. We have worked out where we can make a difference to the team going forward. Like any team in the world, we need our best players on the field but we are in a position to get back on to the front foot. We had 17 players on last year’s Lions tour and England have never won a Six Nations after one.
“History does not keep repeating itself for no reason. A Lions tour is difficult and players feel fatigue at certain stages following one. Some of ours were not at their best during the Six Nations but that does not mean they are not good enough to win the World Cup.
“We used the Six Nations to push the players: I wanted to find out if mentally they had a question mark in their head in what was an important period for us going forward. If we were good enough, we would have won but we were not and know what we have to do. The Barbarians is an important game from a selection point of view because you can see how players operate at a higher level.”
Jones says he had been focusing in training on set pieces, attack and defence, not to mention the breakdown, the area where England most struggled in the Six Nations. England players who were used to penalties being routinely awarded to the attacking side in the Premiership struggled, as they had for their clubs in Europe, when a contest for possession was encouraged. He is fielding a specialist openside, Tom Curry, against the Barbarians and the Sale flanker is adept at winning turnovers.
“Everything we do is geared to winning the World Cup,” says Jones. “I have been frank about that from the start. We finished the Six Nations as the No 1 team in the scrum and the lineout but where did that get us? Usually, set-piece dominance would get you into the top two or three but the way the game has evolved means the breakdown is the most important area.
Chris Ashton back at Twickenham with point to prove to Eddie Jones
“You have to use the ball in the scrum when the ball reaches the feet of the No 8 and the maul is being refereed completely differently now. That has reinforced the breakdown as a crucial area and we were not great there in the Six Nations. Tom Curry is an out-and-out seven so that improves our personnel while we work on mind-set. Wales seem to have any number of sevens. Why? I don’t know.”
Players such as Henry Trinder in the centre, the hooker Jack Singleton and Zach Mercer at No 8 have the opportunity to impress in positions where England are looking for depth, while Elliot Daly is being viewed as the World Cup full-back, but it is an afternoon when a team that has had the turning circle of a cargo ship needs to show it can change course quickly when confronted by the unexpected.