England – Six Nations Champions
England were crowed Six Nations Champions after a 61-21 win victory over Scotland at Twickenham. Scotland went into the game with genuine hopes of derailing the English Championship challenge. That particular hope was dashed as early as the 2nd minute when hooker Fraser Brown was yellow carded for a tip tackle on Elliott Daly.
From the opening exchanges it was very that England were going to put it up to Scotland in the physical stakes and Scotland wilted in the face of an incredible physical challenge where England players like Maro Itoje , James Haskell and Owen Farrell stood up and were counted when it mattered most.
Eddie Jones has continued the good work that Stuart Lancaster started back in 2011 and now England are righted the second best team in World Rugby. There are still a few questions to be answered, can they beat the All Blacks who are still raising the bar after their 2015 World Cup win.
Eddie Jones has defiantly strengthened this England team and will want finish his second Six Nations campaign not alone as champions but they will want to be a double Grand Slam winning team as well. They are very well placed to achieve that particular feat with all of their key players playing well.
Jones has worked on numerous facets of his England team and over the past two seasons we have seen giant strides forward from this squad with only minimal changes between the Grand Slam win in Paris in 2016 and the Championship win in 2017 that could also have a Grand Slam win alongside it as well , only time will tell !!
He has stuck with Dylan Hartley as his skipper even though he has come under real pressure from Jamie George and also his disciplinary issues with Northampton Saints have been well documented. He hasn’t had as much of an influence this season as he had in the 2016 Grand Slam win.
Owen Farrell has taken on a real captain’s role this season and although he wasn’t named skipper he has led from the front and really helped the men inside him namely George Ford and Ben Youngs. The strength of the England forward pack has been huge for this campaign.
Go back 12 months and before the Championship started, Eddie Jones was asked what he wanted to achieve while he was in charge of the England rugby team and while the World Cup in Japan in 2019 is the ultimate aim, he had planned on working on aspects of the team to strengthen their resolve.
He has worked on their forward play with Steve Borthwick and Neal Hatley and now in the aftermath of their decisive win over Scotland, you can now see the back play beginning to take shape and slowly but surely we can now see the fruits of Jones labour taking shape and England have again been crowned Six Nations Champions with a realistic chance of a second successive Grand Slam also in the pipeline.
Two Years is a long time in sport but England have laid down another marker to New Zealand and the rest of the Rugby World that the 2019 World Cup is certainly now firmly in sight and they are ready to challenge to become World Champions in 2019 like the Class of 2003….
By
Cian Mc Gibney
14/03/2017
