IN EDDIE JONES’ mind, England’s stunning World Cup semi-final over New Zealand started last year on his team’s tour of South Africa.
England lost that series 2-1 to Rassie Erasmus’ squad but Jones was satisfied that he had sowed some of the seeds of possible future glory in Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, and Cape Town.
“If you look at the evolution of this team, it started on the South Africa tour,” said Jones on Saturday night in Yokohama, where he appeared to be entirely calm after England had swept past the All Blacks and into their first World Cup final since 2007.
“We had a fairly solid team for the first two years [of his tenure] and we knew we had to make changes to regenerate and reinvigorate. It started in South Africa.”
Funnily enough, it will be the South Africans standing in the way of England’s plan to complete their journey with the World Cup trophy this coming Saturday at International Stadium Yokohama.
Last weekend’s win over the All Blacks was sensational as England delivered one of the best-ever knock-out performances at the World Cup, to the extent that the final scoreline of 19-7 should probably have been more heavily slanted in their favour.
To Jones’ credit, this victory was partly the product of a willingness to evolve in recent times.
The Australian had guided England to a Grand Slam at the first time of asking in 2016 and followed that up with another Six Nations title in 2017, but England finished fifth in the 2018 championship after just two wins, signalling that change was required.
And so, Jones has taken a scalpel to his team ever since.
The 2018 tour to South Africa saw Kyle Sinckler installed as first-choice tighthead prop, while Owen Farrell took over the captaincy in the injury-enforced absence of Dylan Hartley.
Elliot Daly was installed as the new front-line fullback, while Tom Curry – capped only once before then – played in all three Tests against the Boks.
Even since then, Jones has shown his willingness to change and adapt. Previous stalwarts like Chris Robshaw, Mike Brown and Ben Te’o have been ruthlessly jettisoned by the England boss, while he moved on without previous captain Hartley, recognising Farrell as the heartbeat of this squad.
Farrell simply wasn’t going to come off the pitch against the All Blacks despite a dead leg, and his smirking staredown of the haka pre-match typified the fighting spirit of this England team.
“I think you would have needed a samurai sword to get him off!” said Jones afterward.
The Daly project has worked out, giving England greater cutting edge – witness his break for their opening try against the All Blacks – and a useful left-footed kicking game from fullback.
Curry, still only 21, has developed into a phenomenon and 23-year-old Sam Underhill, who only has 14 caps to his name, has teamed up superbly with Curry and number eight Billy Vunipola in the back row.
Sinckler could now lay claim to being the best tighthead in the game, while increased responsibility for Maro Itoje in calling the lineout has seen him grow into the astoundingly dominant force he was against the All Blacks.
Clearly, it helps that Eddie Jones has the deepest player pool in the world to choose from and other coaches at Test level simply do not have that luxury, but he has shown a willingness to evolve and omit experienced players in favour of those with the potential to improve his team.
One other important aspect of the South Africa tour was that Scott Wisemantel came on board as an attack consultant, making such an impression that he was handed a permanent contract.
The Australian is an innovative and infectiously energetic presence who England’s players have quickly grown to love.
Their attacking game has moved to another level since Wisemantal – who also worked with Jones’ Japan at the 2015 World Cup – joined the set-up, culminating in last weekend’s superbly balanced attacking display against the All Blacks.
It was never Jones’ plan to lose defence coach Paul Gustard but the RFU stumped up big money to replace him with the highly-experienced John Mitchell, whose defence completely shut down the All Blacks on Saturday.
So clearly not everything has been part of the masterplan and Jones has been fortunate in some regards. Perhaps most crucially of all, he has behemoths like the Vunipola brothers, Itoje and Manu Tuilagi fully fit at this tournament. Again, there simply are not many athletes like them in the game and other coaches don’t have that quality.
But Jones constantly stresses to his players the need to be adaptable and flexible on the pitch, traits which he has demonstrated in his leadership off it.
Even in this World Cup, the decision to go with Owen Farrell at out-half against Australia and then return to the George Ford-Farrell axis last weekend versus the All Blacks demonstrates an open-mindedness.
Of course, the evolution of England will mean little if they cannot get the job done on Saturday against the Springboks.
The English have been installed as four-point favourites but Erasmus’ Boks won’t be easily beaten and Jones will need to keep his players’ feet on the ground after their emphatic win over the Kiwis.
“It’s a mindset, it’s the attitude of the players, the messaging the staff gives the players and the messaging the leadership gives the players,” said Jones of that challenge.
“It’s about making sure no one gets too far ahead of themselves and this team has got no reason to because we haven’t achieved what we want to achieve. All this has done is give us another week in the comp.”
