Time To Panic?

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, some may point to the South Africa power of the World Cup victory but they had a world-class 9 and x-factor out wide, they could play in a panoply of ways. Jones is evoking the wrath of the media as he's failing to pander to their hypothetical selections of Simmonds, explosive but too small playing in forward dominated Exeter side, and Dombrandt, clearly talented but still relatively unproven (yes, yes he assisted a decent try against Sarries 2s). Curry is now a proven international and maybe Jones sees a footballer within him. Having coached a side to two World Cup finals in different eras of Rugby he probably knows what he's doing.
Lets also look at the facts of Sunday. The French had nothing to lose, with new players and coaches, playing at home in front of a roaring crowd. Furthermore, they have some class acts, Dupont, Ntamack, Vakatawa combining great skill with power and speed. The confidence of Inverdale & Co. on BBC was astounding and turned out to be misplaced. England were always up against it. Losing Tuilagi early meant that they had no bolster against a strong Edwards' defence. The bounce of the ball was not with them, it was England that played most of the rugby not the French. Obviously, the attack looked blunt, it was only the last 20 minutes when England began to  play on the front of France's defence forcing them back. In hindsight England may not have deserved to have won, they clearly played poorly, but they probably should've. Sustained pressure surmounted to nothing in the first half and by the time May glided over it was too late.
However, this is the time for Jones to try out players. Players like Ewels and Furbank need opportunity with the next two summers fairly inconsequential for England with a trip to Japan then the seismic Lions' tour of 2021 seeing the senior players unavailable. Scotland will certainly be in for a roaring reaction from England, and I expect a bullying performance up front, targeting the soft underbelly of the Scots. The exciting Earl is on the bench, and Ewels has been dropped with Youngs, so clearly Jones is searching for an answer. We can all do ourselves a favour and calm down. Remember,  England came 5th in the 2018 Six Nations...



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