Eddie Jones: ‘Stark reality’ of Perth victory laid bare as ex-Wallabies boss ‘astounded’ by criticism of player who ‘epitomised the Lions spirit’
Eddie Jones defends British & Irish Lions wing Mack Hansen.
In the first instalment of his column for Planet Rugby, former Wallabies head coach Eddie Jones dissects the British & Irish Lions’ win over Western Force.
The ex-England and current Japan boss is joining us throughout the Lions tour which climaxes with the three-Test series against Australia later this month and into August.
Here’s Jones‘ thoughts after the weekend’s game in Perth.
Standards to rise
The Lions should be rightly proud of their performance against the Force, but you have to look at the stark reality of the fixture; Western Force are a weak team with few standouts, other than Ollie Hoskins and Nic White.
They are low level performers in Super Rugby and you’d expect a Test quality group of players to stand up and pile points on. 54 is decent, but there could have and should have been more.
With Queensland Reds up next, a side that’ll supply a core of the Wallaby squad, the Lions will face a much sterner test both in the aerial game and around the breakdown.
All tours of this nature, however, need to build momentum. The Lions got something of that going but they will feel they’ve left a few out there. The key is to keep that momentum building, exploring selection options via evolution of a consistent team core rather than revolutionary selection changes and I’d score the Lions maybe a 6/10 in terms of what they achieved versus what they’d want to have achieved.
Star players
I was astounded to see a few pundits in the press bagging Mack Hansen‘s performance.
Ok, he got turned over or lost possession five times, but some of the people that watch rugby focus on error count over involvement, which is ridiculous. The more interventions, touches you get, tackles you attempt and so on, the greater your chance of making a few errors. Hansen’s involvement and work-rate were absolutely off the charts, so the sheer workload he took on meant his error count was always going to be higher.
He epitomised the Lions spirit, trying everything he could to make himself involved, clearing rucks, challenging in the air and making some quite killer runs – and he’s a leggy bugger – really hard to put down in contact. I thought he was great and the guys dissing him were watching a different game to me and he’ll be an absolute glue player for Andy Farrell.
On Tomos Williams, Lions tours always throw up injuries but this one is big and cannot be underestimated, especially with the injury cloud over Jamison Gibson-Park. Given the Bath relationship and domestic dominance I’m surprised they didn’t opt for Ben Spencer, but he will still be in the mix if Gibson-Park doesn’t come through.
I also thought the finishing front-row worked better than the starters. Joe McCarthy in the row is a big lump – something you need in Australia – but even with him behind them, Ollie Hoskins did a bit of a job on the Lions until the finishers came on.
On Henry Pollock – this guy does things that wins games. Whichever way you cut it, whatever your view about his strength and power in the graft work, he is an X-factor player. Every team needs two X-factor men in their side and I expect to see him feature in the Tests.
Without the ball
My overarching feeling about the Lions is so far they’ve been better without the ball than with the ball.
Their defence worked well; not an outright blitz but more of a controlled or moderated push. Given the time they have had together, blending styles is a tough thing, but Andy Farrell’s coaching team have done a great job on that. The battle of the air was less good, however. Not only the challenge but having systems and processes to control the drop zone – the ball landing from the challenge.
My message would be to get attacking and aerial systems honed and polished. Like it or not, that aerial battle is key Down Under; the Lions have some great aerialists to control that battle and they need to improve their work, both from the Argentina game and from the Force game.
The backline will gel. Sione Tuipulotu is a key glue man there; build around his skills and get the relationships in place and the Lions will move forward.
