England head coach Eddie Jones explains the ins and outs of his latest training squad and doesn’t rule out future returns for Joe Launchbury and Danny Care.
Speaking to Skysport Eddie Jones refused to close the door on the veteran Harlequin, although his prospects of being involved again appear remote having fought his way back from four years in international exile.
“Well let’s get something right, we didn’t pull Danny off. We had a plan for that game,” Jones.
“Danny was taken off at the appropriate time, he did a great job for us. He just started playing again yesterday (Sunday) and we want him to find his form with Harlequins.”
“We just feel that at the moment Kyle is best served by getting some good, consistent training in with Bristol,” Eddie Jones said.
“You’ve got to remember that for this camp we’ve only got the boys for two training sessions, so rather than disrupt the pattern we’re allowing Kyle to train with his club and be in a bit of a routine.
“We want to see that progression from him going forward, to get himself right, and Henry Slade is a bit the same.”
Jones said centre Joe Marchant had a “disappointing” tour to Australia hence his omission and revealed are no injury concerns over back five forwards Courtney Lawes and Maro Itoje, who have picked up injuries over the last two weekends.
“We’ve got these extremes in the game at the moment. We want to understand how we play rugby at our best, with our players, and be able to play that game,” Jones said.
“But we need to be able to adapt to a different game. Probably 25 per cent of the game now is uncontrollable through sin-bins, HIAs and uneven numbers in the game.
“The game becomes completely different so we need to be able to adapt from our game to the game that’s going to be played at that time.
“That’s hard to do because there are not too many teams in the world who can do it. In fact, I can’t name one at the moment. So there’s a great opportunity for us.
“We basically can’t get messages on to the field any more so the players have become even more important in terms of decision making on the field.”
