watchable.
Eddie Jones’ England side rumbled past Ireland to keep their unbeaten record in this years Six Nations but it’s not great to watch until he corrects his errors on the hour.
During Stuart Lancaster’s regime you basically were waiting for the hour mark when he’d do his by the number substitutions to see how it would bugger up the team. Oh look here comes Tom Youngs to butcher the perfectly working line-out.
With Eddie Jones you’re waiting until that moment he takes off Ben Youngs and allows the team to play. Stops them being stifled by his dithering.
How many of England’s problems stem from Ben Youngs being late to the party?
They struggle at the breakdown, where is the number 9? Oh, he’s dithering about elsewhere. Oh look England have been over run and lost the ball. Or they’ve given away a stupid penalty because they’re all waiting for someone to pick up the bloody ball. Pick it up, hell he doesn’t even do that when he gets there, no, just dithers about waiting and waiting and waiting.
Oh look Billy has picked the ball up from the scrum and gone on a great charge, oh dear he’s isolated now, why is that, oh, right Ben is lollygagging behind not really bothering to keep up. Oh, England have lost possession because no one is there.
Oh great Ben has done something, oh great he’s put in another aimless box kick that’s just given the ball away.
Amazingly his replacement did more than Youngs in the whole match and he was sinned binned.
A number 9 that gets there quickly and gets away quickly and England look a different outfit. Penalties and turnovers go down and the whole thing is just better. Play dithering Youngs and the same problems will just be repeated over and over again.
So far England and Jones have got away with it…