Topsy Ojo: Minor tweaks should help cure England's World Cup hangover

Topsy Ojo31 January 2020

If Eddie Jones wants to come good on his promise to make England the greatest team rugby has ever seen, then right now it is about minor tweaks and not revolutionary changes.

You have to remember England made a World Cup Final just two months ago and were only 80 minutes away from achieving the ultimate long-term goal.

For the most part, everything worked and they got to where they wanted to, but they just didn’t win that final game. That doesn’t mean, however, you completely rip up all the work you put in and start again.

It is about subtle tweaks and the changes Eddie has made to his backroom staff in bringing in forwards coach Matt Proudfoot and attack coach Simon Amor will help.

When it comes to Proudfoot, we know his reputation and what he did with that South African scrum. But if he looks at England’s scrum, then he will see he has got four world-class props there to work with.

South Africa lost their first game at the World Cup and had to make adjustments along the way, and I think Proudfoot will be looking to do the same with England.

About 80 to 90 per cent of what the English scrum did at the World Cup was right, it was just at the end when they came up against an opposition that had different techniques, they weren’t able to adapt to the situation.

That’s why I am not expecting revolutionary changes, because it is those finer details that will give England the edge.

Simon’s background is in Sevens and this is quite a small window in terms of preparation, so again I don’t expect a revolution.

I know the way Simon thinks and the good thing is that Sevens is all about space. You’d think with a big pitch and fewer players there’d be more space, but actually it is about manipulating that space and how you do it on both sides of the ball.

So the conversations Simon will be having with George Ford and Owen Farrell will be about adding subtle differences, finding and identifying space.

Crucially this is the first time the squad has been together since that final and memories of that will probably come back, but you have to find ways to move on.

Winning away from home is hard and Sunday in Paris will be no different. But if England can come through that it is a great way to start the tournament — and it is the best antidote for any World Cup hangover.

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