Pitchside at Bigside

After England's hard fought victory in the blustery conditions at Murrayfield Ellis Genge and Eddie Jones came out with relatively prickly interviews, unsurprisingly so. It was refreshing to see Genge so honest in his interview, almost looking disinterested, whilst Jones was his usual non-committal self. After the turbulent week in the press the interviewees adopted a semi-vitriolic tone, journalist Stephen Jones suggested that this was the problem. England players not co-operating with the press, almost being anathema for the players. The inconsistency in the press is the galling thing. Matt Dawson being critical after the France game before praising the game management in the maelstrom on Saturday succeeding his glowing report of Jones after the World Cup. Indeed, former World Cup winner Kyran Bracken called for Jones to be replaced after the World Cup, a ludicrous call not only due to the success of Jones and his record, but also the lack of an obvious replacement. There's n

After England's defeat in Paris last Sunday there were plenty in the media and in the Twitterverse eager to criticise the performance of Jones' men. Not only does this reflect rugby's new football-like attitude in regard to memory and failure, just 3 months previously he had masterminded one of the great World Cup performances against New Zealand. Robert Kitson wrote a vituperative and ridiculous article in The Guardian suggesting Jones was arrogant. This statement has its provenance in two areas. The first is Jones' prickly relationship with the media, refusing to spoon feed them vox-pops and facile phrases. Secondly, his refusal to pick a 'proper 8'. The media obsession with power and pace, players such as Sam Simmonds and Alex Dombrandt, means that as soon as Jones picks Curry to replace Vunipola he's naive and arrogant. Jones understands that Test rugby football is more nuanced and skilled than some of the numbskull and dull rugby of the Premiership, som