Eddie Jones believes the crackdown on high tackling will stimulate attacking rugby, one reason why he has hired the vision specialist Dr Sherylle Calder through to the 2019 World Cup.
Calder, who worked with England’s 2003 World Cup-winners, will be involved in the squad’s training camp in Portugal this coming week. Jones has asked her to pay special attention to the back five players in the 34, the full-back Mike Brown and the wings Jack Nowell, Marland Yarde, Jonny May and Anthony Watson.
“Sherylle will work with all the backs, but especially the back-field guys,” says Jones, who is set to keep Brown at full-back for the opening Six Nations match against France at Twickenham on Saturday 4 February, with Nowell and Yarde contesting the right wing and May and Watson the left. “She will give us a special focus and will help the players enormously: Jonny May is going to live with her.
“I worked with her in the 2007 World Cup when I was with South Africa and saw the influence she had on Bryan Habana. He worked at the end of every session with Sherylle, predicting the ball’s flight and catching it, and he was freakish in his interceptions: I still remember the try he scored in the semi-final, picking off the ball brilliantly, but you did not see it from him again and one of the reasons was that he no longer worked with Sherylle.
“The inevitability of the need to tackle lower is that it will free up the game and more offloads will come in. I have been impressed by how France have improved in the understanding of how they play: if they are playing rucks, they are an average team, but they are now playing above the defence, picking a lot of big, tall guys who can get above the tackler and offload. Then they become the old, dangerous France, with movement, tempo and rhythm.”
Jones does not fear that the crackdown on high and dangerous tackling will lead to a flurry of yellow and red cards in the Six Nations, pointing out that England have already worked on refining the technique of players. Dylan Hartley, who is available again this week after completing a six-week suspension, has been among those undergoing re-education. “Players chasing high kicks have to run the proper arc and get themselves in a position where they can see the player coming down together with the flight of the ball and then decide,” says Jones.
“It is about better technique, the same as tackling. If Dylan has his arms in close he does not hit a bloke like he did [playing for Northampton against Leinster last month when he concussed Sean O’Brien]. We are consistently reinforcing good technique and we have spoken to Dylan and he has done numerous skill sessions to pick it up. He is not the only one with that flaw.
“What is more difficult is making the double tackle. Players are going to have to be more technically correct because if the second tackle is too loose, there will be a chance of making contact with the head. Defences will come under more pressure, initially anyway, and that is why tackle technique is really important going forward.”
Jones did not name Hartley as captain when he announced his Six Nations squad on Friday, waiting to see how the hooker comes through training in Portugal after a season in which he has only made seven starts for club and country. The head coach is concerned at the lack of alternatives, that modern sport spawns followers rather than leaders.
“It’s a common issue in all sporting teams at the moment,” he says. “Rather than being educated now to stand on their own two feet, they are taught how to pass a number of parameters and fill a role. They do not have to find out in the morning how to get their breakfast or get to training. The good organisations, who constantly win, create a different environment: you hear how Saracens continually encourage leadership in their team. For us to say we are not in a great position in terms of leadership is not demeaning; it is a factor of where we need to grow.”
Jones has told his players not to get distracted by the Lions tour to New Zealand in the summer and they will not see the tourists’ head coach Warren Gatland, who is taking a year’s sabbatical from Wales, for at least the first couple of rounds of the Six Nations. “He will come in at some stage, but not before the Wales game [on 11 February],” says Jones.
“It is going to be a tough Six Nations. The other sides have improved enormously and that is only good for the tournament. The expectation on us is higher this year and the players have to focus hard on the job in hand, not be swayed by frivolous talk.”
