World Cup Final: Jones has built a brilliant England team

England’s rugby team have come a long way under Eddie Jones. When he took over the side after the wake of the 2015 World Cup, he knew he had his work cut out.  The team, previously coached by Stuart Lancaster, had just recorded their worst ever World Cup performance, crashing out at the pool stages of their home tournament following shock losses to Wales and Australia.

This was not the way that the story was supposed to go, and Jones was faced with a situation where he not only had to rebuild pride in the national team, but the confidence of his players.

Jones had cultivated something of a reputation as a rugby guru before his appointment – in 2003 he led the Wallabies in a stunning World Cup final where they almost, were it not for the boot of one Jonny Wilkinson – took the trophy. In 2007 he was parachuted into the South African rugby world cup campaign as an analyst, a tournament in which the Springboks beat England in the final in a close, try-less contest that ended 15 points to England’s 6.

But perhaps Jones’s most spectacular achievement came in 2015, when he coached the Japan team who pulled off “the Miracle in Brighton”, a game which saw the underdog Cherry blossoms overcome his former team, the Springboks, to claim an upset win in the pool stages. Jones has had an interesting relationship with South African rugby teams, sometimes being an architect of their strategy and in other cases the author their worst nightmares.

When he came into the English set up, however, Jones resisted the temptation to introduce dramatic changes or wild reforms to England’s style of play. Instead, in one of first press interviews as England coach back in 2015, Jones said his England side would not try and play like any other team, and would not play like the All Blacks. Instead, he told the RFU on 20 November 2015: “I think the thing about England’s style…is that we’ve got to use the strengths of English rugby which always been to have a dominant set-piece, strong defence, and that real bull-dog spirit. But that alone doesn’t win games in test rugby. So we’ve got to be able to move the ball when the conditions allows.”

The performance of the supremely dominant England team which defeated the All Blacks last week was a vindication of Jones’s vision and strategy. He can rightly feel pleased that sticking to his guns he developed a style of play that is particularly English, revolving around powerful forwards who establish a strong scrum and line out to provide good ball for the back, direct running in the backline, backed up with a shrewd kicking game.

At its best, this means playing a direct, powerful game based upon maintaining scoreboard pressure and winning in the right areas of the field. If you look at all the great England sides – such as that led by Will Carling in the 1991 World Cup or the winning generation led by Martin Johnson in 2003, they have always built a power game based upon a strangling defence and converting dominant possession into points.

This is what Jones’s team did to the All Blacks last weekend. They stopped them from playing their natural game and forced them to run from their own half, stifling their creative flair and attacking edge. There is a reason that Sir Ian McGeechan, writing in the Telegraph, called this the most accomplished England rugby performance of the modern era.

However, Jones’s team has even more to it than its classical England predecessors – there is also a crispness in attack, a swiftness in the backs that is based upon the new types of running, passing, and kicking skills developed by a new generation of players such as the captain, Owen Farrell, standoff George Ford, and centres like Henry Slade and Jonathan Joseph. They have the bludgeon of the formidable Vunipola brothers and Manu Tuilagi as well as the rapier of an Anthony Watson or the nuance of Elliot Daly at Fullback.

However vindicated Jones may feel, he also knows that this World Cup Final will be the ultimate test of how far he, and his team, have come since 2015. It will be un unyielding examination from a South African team determined to raise their game after a tough game against Wales in the semi-final.

England have had mixed success against their challengers in the final – they have managed to win all of their home fixtures against the Springboks in this World Cup cycle, including a very closely drawn 12-11 victory at Twickenham on 4 November 2018. They will know, however, that their performance against the Springboks in South Africa on their tour in the summer of that same year, brought mixed success, with England losing the series in the southern hemisphere by two games to one.

This will be a physical contest fought by two teams who have a tradition of bruising, attritional rugby.

It is set to be a great final, and probably a close one, whoever wins it. In the end, the strong South African pack may neutralise England’s power game, forcing them to look to the running game which they have developed over the last four years and show the diversity in attack that was a hallmark of their win against New Zealand.

One thing is certain. Eddie Jones will have tricks up his sleeve for the mighty Boks. Jones has said that his team will play tomorrow “without fear”. If England win the final, it would cap off a great year for English sport. It would also be a great personal triumph for Jones himself.

In the last year England and Eddie Jones have given the 23 men representing their country the best chance of ascending the stairway to Rugby heaven. After sixteen years without success, it might finally be time for England to bring the trophy home once again.