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Eddie Jones not worried about risk of injury as England plan to train against Wales ahead of autumn internationals

Jones and Wales counterpart Warren Gatland will meet next Monday to put their forward packs through their paces in an 'intense' scrum and lineout session

Jack de Menezes
Saturday 28 October 2017 19:16 BST
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England and Wales will train against each other to practice scrums and lineouts
England and Wales will train against each other to practice scrums and lineouts

Eddie Jones is ready to risk injuries in order to improve England’s scrum after it was revealed that a training session against Wales has been organised for the opening week of the autumn internationals.

After claiming that England are “20 per cent” behind New Zealand, Jones pinpointed his tight-five as an area for serious improvement, and thus will take his forwards to Bristol a week on Monday to go through an intense training session against Warren Gatland’s Wales pack.

The idea comes from a phone call between England coach Steve Borthwick and Gatland, whom he worked under on the British and Irish Lions tour, and the session will see the sides go through around 12 scrums and 15 lineouts at full intensity to try and recreate what is experienced during a Test match.

“We’re going to scrum against them on Monday week, because we need to prepare for Argentina,” Jones said.

“It will be brilliant, exactly what we need. New Zealand have got the best scrum in the world and we haven’t. So, how do we improve? We’ve got to scrum against sides that are better than us. You can’t improve scrummaging against each other.”

The session will take place on Clifton College rugby fields in a behind-closed-doors event, but while it will give the England forwards the perfect chance to test any new techniques that they pick up from the training camp in Portugal – on which they depart on Sunday night – it does open the door to an increased risk of injuries.

Jones is fully aware of the dangers that lie ahead – and the scrutiny that will come his way should any international players pick up knocks that rule them out of the autumn internationals – but after seeing both Anthony Watson and Jack Nowell suffer previous injuries while away with the England squad, it is nothing that he hasn’t faced before.

“It will be more of the physical stuff against Wales in Bristol,” Jones said. “Get stuck in! Who's got the biggest chest! There's always a risk of injuries but we need to improve our scrumaging. And, you know, if I see you every day, there's a certainly familiarity that grows, and that's what happens when the players scrum against each other. We need to expose them to different areas.”

Anthony Watson hass previously suffered an injury in England training (Getty)

The choice of scrummaging against Wales, despite the obvious Six Nations rivalry, stems from an ease of location more than anything, as had the option of facing another nation been available, Jones was and is keen to explore it.

“We have the Georgian coach coming over in the last week to spend some time with us, and hopefully we can organise something against them,” he added.

“We thought about Georgia but it’s a bit far to go to Tbilisi for a day. So then Steve gave Warren a ring [to see] whether he was up for the idea. Warren was keen so then we worked out we’d go halfway to Bristol to do it.”

The session will take place in full kit and officiated by leading referee Nigel Owens, although the appointment of the Welshman, which has been signed off by both teams, can be seen as a half-victory for Gatland over his old rival.

“They will do a match of scrums, about 12 large scrums and 15 line-outs,” Jones continued. We wanted Wayne Barnes but they wanted Nigel Owens...so we've bowed to their wishes. It's a great place and Nigel will do it. He's one of the best referees in the world so we're lucky.”

However, Gatland has also unknowingly helped Jones’s cause in trying to knock the All Blacks off their perch at the top of the rugby union ladder. All 15 England internationals that featured on the British and Irish Lions tour have been made to fill out a full review of the tour and, in particular, Steve Hansen’s side, with Australian Jones subsequently compiling a dossier bigger than his fist.

“We got the players to write reviews of the Lions, from a learning point of view – what they learned about how to prepare for big Test matches, what they learned about the Kiwis,” he explained. “Some of it was outstanding. That has been really important. Again we listened to the players.”

Warren Gatland is back coaching with Wales after the Lions tour 

Jones added: “It was all about coaching, physical preparation, tactical preparation, the psyche of New Zealand, what they found out, what players they felt could be flustered, how they would get at them. Really good detailed stuff, the players thought about it a lot. And it becomes a dossier that is important for us going forward.”

Jones’ squad will gather on Sunday night following this weekend’s round of Premiership fixtures to fly to Portugal where they will go through an intense training programme on the beaches of the Algarve, with three different schedules planned in order to manage the differing levels of fatigue throughout the squad for players who either had the summer off, went to Argentina as part of Jones’ England side or featured on the Lions tour.

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