Eddie pushes for football-style touchline coaching
IN THE SPOTLIGHT: England coach Eddie Jones revealed that he wants to coach test rugby from the sidelines like the football managers.
It seems like Jones is determined to adopt a football manager role and start patrolling the touchline, insisting spending the second half close to the action will have real benefits for his England team.
In an interview with England’s RFU performance director Conor O’Shea in an episode of “The Eddie Jones Podcast”, Jones revealed he was a touchline coach when working in Japan and is considering spending the first half in the “normal” position set aside for head coaches in the main stand before patrolling the side of the pitch for the second 40 mins.
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The new coaching position would also put the England head coach closer to the comments from the crowd but Jones is adamant that copying football is a natural progression for rugby.
“Ideally, if you could, you would do the first half in the stand to look at the patterns [of play] what tactically are they trying to do and where can you expose them in the second half which a lot of times is more about emotion, digging deep and you could add some value on the side of the pitch,” Jones said.
“I was lucky enough when I coached in Japan to coach on the side of the pitch and you could definitely have an influence on certain teams and you see that with football managers.
“Having that balance of being able to get how the game is evolving and then add something to the emotional side of the game could make it quite interesting.”
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Jones also revealed that he is using the lockdown period to “look ahead” and see how the game is developing and to work out how England can get ahead of the rest of the sport.
“We spend a lot of time on Zoom which is the latest medium for communication and as coaches, we are working out where we can take our [England] game and what is the cycle. We are always looking for opportunities to impose our strengths on the opposition and to take away their strengths.
“We spend 80 percent of the time on us and 20 percent on the opposition.”
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