It is now four weeks until England start their RBS Six Nations campaign against Scotland at Hampden Park. I know what the prevailing thoughts are - we should win this and set up a strong tournament. Except that we really ought to be extremely wary of Scotland. This is a team who came within a referee's decision of knocking eventual finalists Australia out of the World Cup at the quarter final stage. More importantly, the last time Eddie Jones faced them they destroyed a Japanese team that were on a high from their narrow victory over South Africa. So, Scotland are not to be taken lightly.
To understand my trepidations about the upcoming Six Nations Championship, I must first give a quick review of England's performance at the World Cup. Everyone knows that it was very poor. So poor, in fact, that Rugby Union lost someone who could've been one of the best centres in the game in Sam Burgess. But you can read about that elsewhere. England failed to qualify from their group. That was a very difficult group to qualify from though. Wales and Australia were always going to provide stiff opposition. In order to prove that, I'd like to point out that since 2003 (when England won the World Cup), Wales have won three Grand Slams and four Six Nations Championships overall. England have only the one Championship (2011). Twelve months before, Australia couldn't buy a win. They were the epitome of poor and so Ewen McKenzie quit with a 50% win ratio. Enter Michael Cheika who turned a team that struggled at the best of times into Rugby Championship winners (although it was a shortened championship due to the World Cup).
So, England struggled and failed to qualify from their group. This may not have been a bad thing. I had a lot of time for Stuart Lancaster, but I thought we had a squad that could compete at the World Cup, it just wasn't the one he took with him. So he left and the RFC appointed Eddie Jones as head coach. He comes with an already impressive CV. World Cup finalist with Australia in 2003 only a Jonny Wilkinson drop goal away from winning the Webb Ellis Cup, a strong technical analyst throughout South Africa's victorious campaign in the 2007 World Cup and taking Japan to within two points of making their first ever knockout round last October. So how will he do now he has the biggest job in world rugby?
I hope he does alright. He seems to be a really likeable guy from the interviews and he has coached at the highest levels of the game before his appointment to England. He has also had a large amount of success at the top levels. He was the obvious choice (mainly because he was the only one available, but his CV stands out). Having said that, Michael Cheika had never coached at international level before taking over and reviving the Wallabies.
What's different about Jones compared to the last four coaches since Sir Clive is that he has an extremely good understanding of English rugby. Having watched them play up close and in a slightly more detached capacity at both the 2003 and 2007 World Cup finals, he has had the best seats in the house to watch England play. I'll leave you with his quote which proves my thoughts. From BBC Radio 4's Today Programme last October, "If you look at English sport there's some general things that England sides are pretty good at in rugby... normally they have that bulldog spirit, they have strong set piece, strong defence and then you build the game around that. I think that's probably what's been missing from the England sides for the last 12 years really, since 2003."
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