England head coach Eddie Jones backs ‘warrior’ Owen Farrell to lead from the front
Written by News on 18/10/2019
England head coach Eddie Jones insists he has complete faith in captain Owen Farrell ahead of Saturday’s World Cup quarter-final with Australia at Oita Stadium.
Jones has dropped the in-form George Ford and moved Farrell to fly-half as part of a beefed-up midfield that includes Manu Tuilagi and Henry Slade.
Farrell resumes as ringmaster but there is concern over his form as he has fallen short of expectations so far in Japan and Jones revealed it is a topic that has been addressed with his captain.
“Owen’s got quite a big job for us. He’s captain and he’s goal-kicker,” Jones said.
“The responsibility of being captain at the World Cup is much larger than normal Test matches because you’re bringing a group of 31 players together for eight or nine weeks.
“You get all the family issues. You go to the dinner table, one brother is happy, one brother is unhappy. Someone doesn’t know if they are happy or not.
“Owen’s the father of the group, so to speak. His ability to delegate, to know what to say to players is a challenging experience for a young guy like him. He’s coping with it really well.
“But I feel like sometimes, maybe earlier in the tournament, he spent too much time in the captaincy area and not enough on his own individual prep. I’ve seen a real change in that this week.
“He’s a warrior. He leads from the front. He competes, he’s tough. And that’s what we’ve tried to produce in this team.
“We’ve got a tough team who competes hard. That’s how we want to play. That’s the England style of playing.”
Jones insists that lifting the Webb Ellis Trophy is earned by resilience more than genius.
“Tournaments are about – and particularly a World Cup is about – a team sticking together,” he said.
“The rugby in a World Cup is pretty simple. You don’t see brilliant rugby in World Cups.
“You see teams that are able to do things over and over again well, deal with the intensity, application, work hard for each other – that wins World Cups.
“I can’t recall a brilliant team winning the World Cup. Tough, hard teams that stick together win it.
“Maybe the only one is New Zealand in 2015. They were miles ahead of everyone. Apart from that…”
(c) Sky Sports 2019: England head coach Eddie Jones backs ‘warrior’ Owen Farrell to lead from the front
