RugbyRebels

Don't know who else has read it, but thought I'd write down some thoughts on what I reckon it means for England, especially as everyone is talking about Farrell, The Simmondses and selection in general.

As for the book it's repetitive as hell and contains no end of humblebrag, but to be honest it's to be expected of a sports biography, and only reminded me that I generally hate reading them! Also a certain amount of arrogance and front is probably to be expected from a top coach in any sport and is unfortunately also a prerequisite for success.

Anyways, some things that I thought were quite insightful;

Jones is very into data analysis and is a genuinely engaged and innovative coach, but sometimes gets a bit blinded by data;
This is how I think I'd sum up how England are playing at the moment (the kicking game). We all remember the obsession with how quickly players get to their feet after contact, it seems the new obsession is kicking and the success ratio of kicks to wins seems to be the new unicorn tactic however...

Eddie likes to hold something back and suprise everyone;
I think this is the hope! It seems that Eddie doesn't buy in to the whole 'give your all in every single game' mantra of most coaches. He recognises it's not possible and tries to get his teams peaking for one off games/tournaments (the World Cup). I think this came unstuck in the 2019 because he saw NZ as the final and thought we could back it up against SA by going back to the physical game that had previously been successful(ish).

Eddie doesn't believe in the need to inspire or motivate;
To use an NFL analogy, Eddie is definitely a Bill Belichek, 'just do your job' type coach who feels that players should always be giving the right amount of effort and shouldn't need to be inspired in any way. Again, we came unstuck against a team that was cleary inspired and determined beyond their normal level.

Eddie genuinely loves his players;
He just doesn't particularly trust them! He's a sucker for a rags to riches story / bad boy done good, see Sinckler, Genge, Tuilagi and Nowell. Other players he mentions in glowing terms are FARRELL, Ford, Marler, Mako, Billy, Youngs and Daly. Doesn't mention Itoje in such glowing terms. I have a theory that Eddie likes to be the smartest guy in the room and is also rugby obsessed. I think maybe Itoje is a)smarter than Eddie and b)has many interests outside of rugby so is possibly viewed with suspicion.

Eddie likes to build his teams around 2 or 3 characters;
For Aus it was Gregan, Larkham and Smith, with Gregan as the mouth, Larkham as the brain and Smith as the body. For England I think his version of this is a bit more complicated. Farrell is definitely his Gregan, and therefore his captain and therefore (unfortunately!) undroppable. What complicates this is that I genuinely get the feeling that he feels Ford is his best on pitch brain, hence the Farrell to 12 move. He compares Curry to Smith quite a lot and he seems to think of him in a similar way, ie not captain material/an effective leader on the pitch but a player who sets an example as far as physicality and effort. I think most of us would put Itoje either above or at the very least alongside Curry here, whilst also seeing him as a good (potentially great) leader, but Jones seems to feel Itoje's not as good as everyone else thinks he is. This is probably an attitude thing. Although having read the book I'm not sure i particularly trust Eddie as a judge of this!

Eddie is obsessed with being too small to play for Aus;
You might think this would lead him to be more willing to give smaller players or players who go against the physical norms in their position a go. Actually it has done the opposite. Size matters!

Eddie is a system coach;
Despite coming from a Randwick team that seemingly played heads up attractive running rugby, pretty much run by the players and mostly instinctual. Eddie us, as I think we all recognise, a control freak. He likes to set up his teams with a system and remove the creative/improvised part of the game as much as possible. In fairness to Eddie this is partly just the modern game and him having recognised that 'the Randwick way' would not work now. Also he does seem to let George Ford do his thing pretty much.

Conclusion;
Despite my many misgivings and what will probably be perceived as criticisms. I'm actually pretty happy with Eddie as Coach. I think he is easily in the top 5 of coaches in the World and is a genuinely innovative and constantly inquisitive, curious and studious coach always looking for the best way to win. Where I think he maybe falls down is in his psychological preparation for the players. In fairness though I think this is probably far less important than we'd all think, and outside of the World Cup final, against a team that combined a physically imposing game with (what I thought seemed like) an almost unheard of desire to win, it usually works.

Size is certainly a thing with Eddie, it hurt him not being picked ahead of Kearns, and in some ways it hurts him more he agrees with that decision.

Also more than many coaches Eddie seems to seek certainty, he doesn't want ad-hoc inconsistency in a team's game. Thus the huge amount of structure and detail around how we play. Eddie still realises the players will make lots of decisions, just he wants them made within a certain understanding. That's hardly unique, but it does seem to be a bigger driver with him.

Absolutely. It is all a bit of a weird 'embracing of his own bitterness'!

Also, on the system, I think the Simmondses are destined never to get much of a look in whilst Eddie is coach. In all honesty I can understand why. He's identified Curry and Billy as two of his absolute world class options in the back row. And he's probably right. Billy brings a unique blend of size, hard yards carrying, and handling/offloading. As well as being a beast in certain set piece scenarios.
Curry, as mentioned, is his do it all tyro in the loose. I think Willis has a chance to oust Underhill, because he brings more skills to the table whilst not losing much if anything in Underhill's role as a stopper. But Simmonds, whilst being probably as uniquely talented as Billy, just doesn't compliment (in Eddie's eyes at least) the other back row riches we have and clearly, personality wise, Eddie hasn't been impressed enough to build the back row and game plan around him.
Same goes for Joe. Eddie did experiment with Cipriani at fb (a bit!), but it's clear to me that until someone comes along and becomes even more Farrell or even more Ford than Ford, he's just not willing to bend the scheme. Exeter play in a very particular way and unless they become completely dominant and unignorable. Eddie will ignore them! Obviously there are positions where this is all less of a problem, hence LCD, Hill, Nowell and even Devoto (sort of) getting a fair cracking. But back row and 10 are too key to the way Eddie wants England to play and have players that are perceived as undroppable.

Yep read it. He's a rugby obsessive and you can tell why he's a bit chippy when you understand his background.

Dan. Dan. Dan. wrote:As for the book it's repetitive as hell and contains no end of humblebrag, but to be honest it's to be expected of a sports biography, and only reminded me that I generally hate reading them!

Thanks for taking one for the team - I hate reading them as well, but I'm quite interested in the insights!

The Bad Boy Come Good thing also explains the Hartley captaincy, as well. I think Itoje is the antithesis of that in Eddie's eyes - well-spoken, top schools including a private 6th form, articulate, educated. At least Ford's got a northern accent to add a quasi-rough edge!

Puja

Read it too, and agree with most of your thoughts.

On Itoje, my sense is that Jones likes his players to hold him in reverence and be slightly wary of him. Itoje is just so ridiculously confident and comfortable in own skin, even before he was a bonafide superstar, that he didn’t behave like this towards Jones. I think that put Eddie on the back foot slightly.

I can also imagine that Jones is- or at least, has been- concerned that being brilliant comes a little too easy to Maro (as Puja says, the antithesis of Jones in many ways). Maybe he feels that knocking him down a peg or two from time to time is the best way to manage him.

Out of interest, does he mention Robshaw in the book at all? The Steffon argument starting up in another thread brought me across the article from 2015 where he trashed Robshaw in the press, before he started managing him and realised just what a good player he actually was.

Puja

I'm a massive Eddie fanboy so will prob get this book for Christmas.
I think the one thing for me on Eddie is he has the perfect attitude for a England coach and IMO that goes for every sport.

Timbo wrote:Read it too, and agree with most of your thoughts.

On Itoje, my sense is that Jones likes his players to hold him in reverence and be slightly wary of him. Itoje is just so ridiculously confident and comfortable in own skin, even before he was a bonafide superstar, that he didn’t behave like this towards Jones. I think that put Eddie on the back foot slightly.

I can also imagine that Jones is- or at least, has been- concerned that being brilliant comes a little too easy to Maro (as Puja says, the antithesis of Jones in many ways). Maybe he feels that knocking him down a peg or two from time to time is the best way to manage him.

I think the slightly weird thing with Itoje is that basically says he didn't think he was ready. Then he had his breakout performance and we had all the Ford Anglia (or whatever bloody car it was!) rubbish, then he just had to accept he was brilliant and keep him in the side (although still messing about putting him/Lawes at 60.
In the book he says something along the lines of 'some guys you've got to put down and some guys you got to build up, but with Maro it's best just to leave him to it'. Which I kind of took to mean 'I don't really understand him, so I'll just leave him alone and hope he keeps being amazing'.

Puja wrote:Out of interest, does he mention Robshaw in the book at all? The Steffon argument starting up in another thread brought me across the article from 2015 where he trashed Robshaw in the press, before he started managing him and realised just what a good player he actually was.

Puja

He does. And it's definitely one of those moments where he tries to disguise being wrong with actually being right all along...
They had that special coffee date after the World Cup where he told him how brilliant he was, as long as he never had a number 7 on his back.
Then played someone else who wasn't a 7 at 7 and claimed it as the way England should play all the time. Until they shouldn't!
As I said before I think it probably is a prerequisite of an international coach to at least give the impression they are always right. Might have been Burt's problem all along (and come to think of it Robshaw's problem as Captain), that he's just too humble.

Tigersman wrote:I'm a massive Eddie fanboy so will prob get this book for Christmas.
I think the one thing for me on Eddie is he has the perfect attitude for a England coach and IMO that goes for every sport.

Me too, and I've always liked his chippy sense of humour. Apart from the fact that he's brilliant at diverting attention away from the players and onto the opposition or himself, he's just quite funny about the knowing way he plays with the media.
Having said that, probably the most disappointing thing about the book is how straight laced and humourless he comes across in it. Even his Randwick days are pretty tame, seemingly even then he was all about the game. You'd expect at least a few messy anecdotes about him and the Ella brothers, but nothing really...

Dan. Dan. Dan. wrote:

Timbo wrote:Read it too, and agree with most of your thoughts.

On Itoje, my sense is that Jones likes his players to hold him in reverence and be slightly wary of him. Itoje is just so ridiculously confident and comfortable in own skin, even before he was a bonafide superstar, that he didn’t behave like this towards Jones. I think that put Eddie on the back foot slightly.

I can also imagine that Jones is- or at least, has been- concerned that being brilliant comes a little too easy to Maro (as Puja says, the antithesis of Jones in many ways). Maybe he feels that knocking him down a peg or two from time to time is the best way to manage him.

I think the slightly weird thing with Itoje is that basically says he didn't think he was ready. Then he had his breakout performance and we had all the Ford Anglia (or whatever bloody car it was!) rubbish, then he just had to accept he was brilliant and keep him in the side (although still messing about putting him/Lawes at 60.
In the book he says something along the lines of 'some guys you've got to put down and some guys you got to build up, but with Maro it's best just to leave him to it'. Which I kind of took to mean 'I don't really understand him, so I'll just leave him alone and hope he keeps being amazing'.

If we’re playing with 60 players then I’m with oakboy, we should be going to every World Cup thinking we were going to win. May be Dan Luger knew what he was doing after all.

Mellsblue wrote:
If we’re playing with 60 players then I’m with oakboy, we should be going to every World Cup thinking we were going to win. May be Dan Luger knew what he was doing after all.

We could finally get all those back rowers in!

Dan. Dan. Dan. wrote:

Mellsblue wrote:
If we’re playing with 60 players then I’m with oakboy, we should be going to every World Cup thinking we were going to win. May be Dan Luger knew what he was doing after all.

We could finally get all those back rowers in!

Still no room for Sam Simmonds though.

Puja

Puja wrote:

Dan. Dan. Dan. wrote:

Mellsblue wrote:
If we’re playing with 60 players then I’m with oakboy, we should be going to every World Cup thinking we were going to win. May be Dan Luger knew what he was doing after all.

We could finally get all those back rowers in!

Still no room for Sam Simmonds though.

Puja

He just doesn't fit the system! Brad Shields finally in the team though...

As you all know I’m no fan of Jones and think England are in the fag end of his tenure but I’m interested enough to order this book through my local library. The comments on his perceived attitude to Itoje are very interesting and betray a degree of insecurity beneath that grinning, bluf ‘sod you mate’ exterior of his

Dan. Dan. Dan. wrote:

Timbo wrote:Read it too, and agree with most of your thoughts.

On Itoje, my sense is that Jones likes his players to hold him in reverence and be slightly wary of him. Itoje is just so ridiculously confident and comfortable in own skin, even before he was a bonafide superstar, that he didn’t behave like this towards Jones. I think that put Eddie on the back foot slightly.

I can also imagine that Jones is- or at least, has been- concerned that being brilliant comes a little too easy to Maro (as Puja says, the antithesis of Jones in many ways). Maybe he feels that knocking him down a peg or two from time to time is the best way to manage him.

I think the slightly weird thing with Itoje is that basically says he didn't think he was ready. Then he had his breakout performance and we had all the Ford Anglia (or whatever bloody car it was!) rubbish, then he just had to accept he was brilliant and keep him in the side (although still messing about putting him/Lawes at 60.
In the book he says something along the lines of 'some guys you've got to put down and some guys you got to build up, but with Maro it's best just to leave him to it'. Which I kind of took to mean 'I don't really understand him, so I'll just leave him alone and hope he keeps being amazing'.

Some people are just so driven to be the best that as a coach you just need to provide the capacity for them to keep improving. Proudfoot spoke in the media today about how Itoje was the first player he spoke to on Monday after the post game rest day and Itoje wanted to go through the tapes to see what he could do better for the game Vs Wales. If you've got that hunger and that self confidence then you don't need a lot of man management. Especially in a rugby squad when you've got 30 other guys who probably aren't wired like that and need work.

Itoje is one of the stand out players in world rugby but he says very little to the media. What he does say is well thought out and insightful. He's often humble. Probably should be captain to be honest and will probably captain the Lions.

One hopes he does become Lions captain and then it would seem sensible for Eddie to move Fazlet to one side and make him Eng capt. Johno was Lions capt first wasn't he? Trouble is that I think Eddie would feel uncomfortable in the capt-coach chats when he'd be the mentally inferior person, that'll be why Fazlet is capt. Whatever it is about Fazlet that most of us on here are missing (and there must be something) making Itoja capt just seems so obvious it's baffling why it wasn't done after the WC where he grew as a player and consigned the whooping nonsense to history.

Beasties wrote:One hopes he does become Lions captain and then it would seem sensible for Eddie to move Fazlet to one side and make him Eng capt. Johno was Lions capt first wasn't he? Trouble is that I think Eddie would feel uncomfortable in the capt-coach chats when he'd be the mentally inferior person, that'll be why Fazlet is capt. Whatever it is about Fazlet that most of us on here are missing (and there must be something) making Itoja capt just seems so obvious it's baffling why it wasn't done after the WC where he grew as a player and consigned the whooping nonsense to history.

Jones wants to move away from the traditional English captain and English style that he saw Robshaw being the personification of. Instead, he wants "dog" and "grit" and "being a tosser", so chose Hartley and now Fazlet. He wouldn't pick someone who wasn't a mouthy tosser as captain. So if Fazlet got injured long term, we'd probably be looking at parachuting in a league player to be captain.

It's the one big thing I disagree with Jones about. Not to say there aren't a lot of little things, but I think the England captain should be a natural born leader, not a chippy gobshite. Itoje ticks those boxes for me. As does Ford. At least Ford has a northern accent going for him...

I am in the 'pick the XV, then the captain' camp. Itoje is the only certain starter and should be captain. The alternative is having to pick Farrell because he is captain - nonsensical.

You want your captain to be one of your best players who can lead by example and who's presence inspires trust and confidence.
For all we know the England players regard Farrell in that light. It's them he has to convince, not us.
That's what matters.
For his obvious faults as a player, I believe Hartley was well thought of within the England setup.

fivepointer wrote:You want your captain to be one of your best players who can lead by example and who's presence inspires trust and confidence.
For all we know the England players regard Farrell in that light. It's them he has to convince, not us.
That's what matters.
For his obvious faults as a player, I believe Hartley was well thought of within the England setup.

the captain is also the voice of the coach on the pitch, so they have to be aligned. But they also have to be able to change tack on the hoof- that was Jonno's big strength, simplify what needed to be done and get it done.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union ... ange-game/



Sometimes it can be easy to pick holes in the metaphors delivered by Eddie Jones, but his comparison between England’s performance analysis and that of Liverpool FC was pretty reasonable.

“We’re in nursery school,” admitted the Australian on the subject of off-the-ball measurements in the round-ball game. “Liverpool are doing their PhD at Oxford.”

Michael Hughes was Rugby Football Union’s lead analyst for over 100 Tests until January 2017 and has been on the last two British and Irish Lions tours. He pulls back the curtain.

“Player movement can be more accurately tracked via pixel recognition and Local Positioning Systems,” he explains.



“GPS is no good for the accuracy or resolution you are looking for, particularly to make tactical decisions.

“It can be metres out and you don’t get it on the opposition. That is where football is ahead.”

Centralising player tracking data is the first step. A company called Second Spectrum, for instance, is the official tracking partner of the Premier League – as well as the National Basketball Association and Major League Soccer.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the respective locations of opponents and the ball, relative to your own players, is vital. It helps analysts perform their chief function, as defined by Hughes, of “connecting coaching philosophy to data and acting as a conduit or bridge between the two.”

“That way, you can benchmark what your players are doing versus other positions and teams,” he adds. “It gives you another data set with which to interrogate whether your team are employing the gameplan.



“If you look at Liverpool or Manchester City when they are playing a high-press, you can look at data – as well as the video, as you have to do in rugby – to see whether the players are delivering.

“Line-speed is probably the equivalent of the high-press in football, and [rugby] analysts are still having to manually tag clips of line-speed or kick-chase as event data because you don’t have the resolution of player tracking data to automate that for you.”

As an example, football analysts such as Ian Graham at Liverpool, whom Jones has met, are presented with real-time information on how intensely each member of their front three are pressing.

The process of harvesting similar intelligence in rugby requires coaches and analysts to pore over video tape retrospectively and rely on subjective judgment. It is far more laborious and imprecise.

Cameras still capture outstanding off-the-ball contributions. Owen Farrell’s sprint across the England 22 to gather, and mark, a punt from Ireland wing James Lowe last Saturday was caught by an end-to-end view.



But rugby’s smaller budgets present an obstacle to progress, as do the idiosyncrasies of a close-quarter contact sport.

“With six players in a ruck, 10 in a maul or 16 in a scrum, it’s really hard for computer software to reassign who’s who,” Hughes points out.

Jones is open to innovation. He has leant on the insights of data specialists Gordon Hamilton-Fairley and James Tozer. Sportable, the analytics company, have worked with England as well.

Even so, the accurate tracking of a 15-on-15 match remains some way off. If and when it does arrive, Hughes believes conversations will become far more detailed.

“Everyone in rugby at the moment talks about attack, defence, transition and exits, then whether or not attacks come from set piece or broken-play,” he continues.

“Manchester City and Liverpool defend in a high-press. At the weekend against Fulham, Everton dropped into a low block. Currently, we don’t have the same amount of terms for attacking and defensive states in rugby.

“In defence, there’s line-speed or there isn’t. That’s about it. We don’t talk about times in the game where teams emphasise line-speed more than other times in the game.



“We don’t articulate the percentage of time spent with line-speed over or under a certain threshold, or time spent in a passive defensive system versus an aggressive one, or the time spent with the scrum-half in the front line, or the time in a 14-1 versus a 13-2 or what sort of line-speed it is – whether it is led by the ‘A’ defender close to the ruck or by the wings.

“Greater resolution of data would allow us to articulate these game states far more consistently and cohesively.”

On the other side of the ball, Hughes believes, greater resolution of data would help us appreciate how teams attack with and without momentum, or when they are in the lead or chasing a game: “Just saying ‘they’re spinning it wide’ is too simplistic”.

From there, the commercial space would be the next logical step. How about on-screen graphics that detail sprinting speeds or total distance covered? Citing golf’s TrackMan technology, providing ball flight and shot velocity to broadcasters, Hughes gets on a roll as he addresses how rugby on television could be “elevated”.



“The way scrummaging is broadcast could be totally revolutionised,” he laughs. “People moan rather than educating on the importance of them. Can you imagine an NFL broadcast doing the same about the offensive line?

“We should be saying how important that first scrum is emotionally. We should be talking about the importance of chest position, shoulder position.

“We should be explaining why a tighthead prop is earning more money than a fly-half. It’s just a disservice to the public and players that have been playing their whole careers in those positions.”

Nursery school or not, Jones is evidently excited about the future of rugby union analysis. Supporters should be, too.

Regarding "Cameras still capture outstanding off-the-ball contributions. Owen Farrell’s sprint across the England 22 to gather, and mark, a punt from Ireland wing James Lowe last Saturday was caught by an end-to-end view."

Was it really outstanding or just the expected level for an international player? Daly kicked it, and chased to put people on-side, so Farrell is the covering 15 so moves over. To me it didn't seem especially note worthy. It looked to me more that he'd intended not to run out (and thus kick it back) and called mark late.

jimKRFC wrote:Regarding "Cameras still capture outstanding off-the-ball contributions. Owen Farrell’s sprint across the England 22 to gather, and mark, a punt from Ireland wing James Lowe last Saturday was caught by an end-to-end view."

Was it really outstanding or just the expected level for an international player? Daly kicked it, and chased to put people on-side, so Farrell is the covering 15 so moves over. To me it didn't seem especially note worthy. It looked to me more that he'd intended not to run out (and thus kick it back) and called mark late.

I think it was pretty smart calling the mark just in time, but you'd expect him to, tbh. The reason he had to do it just in time is that he was in the wrong position to start with though.