How Eddie Jones changed the fortune of an England star and the advice Noah Caluori needs to heed
Eddie Jones vital advice and what Noah Calouri needs to do to make the England squad
Three-time British and Irish Lions tourist Elliot Daly has revealed the most important piece of advice he received from former England coach Eddie Jones.
Speaking on The Good, The Bad & The Rugby podcast, the 33-year-old also revealed the key area in which Saracens colleague Noah Caluori needs to work on.
Eddie Jones’ key piece of advice
Jones coached Daly for seven years at England, and helped mould the Saracens star into the player he is today.
“Eddie was one of the best coaches I had,” Daly told the panel. “Because when I was trying to get in the team, I was doing way too much, like ‘I need to show I’m good’.
“He just sat me down, and was like, ‘stop thinking.'”
“I didn’t really understand it at the time. He said, ‘Just do whatever the first thing comes in, it’ll probably be right. I’ve done that ever since.”
Daly has since acquired an honours list to rival almost any player in the country, which includes three Six Nations Championships, one Premiership title and a starting appearance in a World Cup final.
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Back three control
Once a raw talent with an entire career ahead of him, Daly is now an experienced head, able to provide insight and support to the young lads coming through.
At Saracens, the headline talent is 19-year-old Noah Caluori, who has been utterly mesmerising in his PREM breakthrough season. Leading the try-scoring charts with 18, including 10 tries in just two games against Sale Sharks, he has caught the attention of England head coach Steve Borthwick.
Still incredibly fresh to the international environment, Caluori has already appeared for the ‘A’ team. But Daly believes that an introduction to senior training will only further his development as he looks to gain a full senior England cap.
“We do quite a lot of back-three stuff together, but more when he first came in,” Daly explained.
“His attacking side of the game is going to be his attacking side of the game, running kicks back, catching high balls, and beating people; he’s got that.
“It’s more backfield defensively, those are the things that you learn, that’s probably the biggest jump from academy level to the first team.
“You can run an attack shape, and you can drop an academy kid in a session; they won’t look out of place because if they get the ball, they can just run if they want to, whereas if you drop them into a defensive system, everyone needs to be on the same page.
“If I’m calling him back to be on like a half, because they’re going to kick that way, or that kind of thing, he needs to be able to do that.”
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“He’s understood what he needs to do now”
Daly has seen huge growth in the young man’s game.
“From when he first came in, he’s realised that, and he’s understood what he needs to do now,” Daly continued.
“I was talking about how important training is, because for him, he wouldn’t have run a backfield before.
“You’re not thinking that at the school level, or you’re not thinking, ‘Oh, I’ve got space in the backfield there’, no one’s actually gonna just exploit it, whereas at Premiership level it’s going to be.”
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