England vs Ireland: Farrells go head-to-head at Twickenham on weekend of reunions
A cursory look through this year’s Six Nations fixtures would have been enough to tell you this is the Championship’s pivotal weekend.
First, it is the weekend that affords Italy their best shot at ending their 24-match Six Nations losing run, at home to Scotland, the last team they beat, back in 2015.
Then it is the weekend that reunites Wales and Shaun Edwards, who played such a key role in their success over the last dozen years but is now enlightening the French defence, in a tasty meeting in Cardiff.
Not only are the two teams bickering about the legality of the French scrum, but — despite both being under new coaches — they are totally different in terms of experience.
Wales are fielding the most-capped XV ever, while France began the Six Nations with a pack with 85 caps and a youthful backline. Centre Arthur Vincent will tomorrow become the first player born after the Principality Stadium was opened in 1999 to play a Test there.
And, finally, it is the weekend that throws up a stranger reunion still at Twickenham, with the visiting team’s head coach, Andy Farrell, being the father of the hosts’ captain, Owen Farrell.
Farrell Sr also played for England, then coached their defence. Between times, he moved into coaching under Eddie Jones, now his opposite number, at Saracens. Throw in his experience with the Lions and he could barely be more familiar with England.
The table is neatly laid out. Defeat for Scotland or Italy, both none from two, would surely condemn them to the wooden spoon. Defeat for Wales or England would end their hopes of the title. France and Ireland are unbeaten, but away from home for the first time this campaign.
There feels a decent chance that we will know by Sunday evening that 2020 will not be a Grand Slam year. But if Ireland or France get through either of these mighty away assignments, a Slam is right on the cards. If both win, we are careering towards an epic meeting in Paris on the final weekend.
The Six Nations is an extremely familiar competition. Players meet with their clubs and countries, and then some are joined every four years with the Lions.
The meeting of the Farrells, as heartbeat of one team and the brains of another, surely takes this to another level. At the World Cup, Farrell Sr stayed in Japan after Ireland were knocked out to watch his lad. They have spoken on the phone this week. Both are so intensely professional that they seem to find their situation totally normal, even bristling when asked about it.
Jones said it had not even been mentioned once in England camp, but rank was finally broken among the Irish when Conor Murray said yesterday: “It’s always going to be weird, isn’t it? Something like that is a bit strange.”
It is the sort of thing not often even seen at Sunday league, let alone international level. But it is something to be celebrated, too.
Ben Youngs, the England scrum-half, spoke persuasively yesterday about
how the game has become more prescriptive in his 10 years at Test level, with defences becoming much more robust.
Farrell and Edwards have been central to that development, and the sight of them in other technical boxes is a reminder of the coaching quality the English game has allowed to move on.
World Cup-winner Mike Catt is in Farrell’s team, while working at Irish provinces are Stuart Lancaster and Graham Rowntree. That is England’s coaching team from the 2015 World Cup and a few very decent rugby minds.
Jones has taken a different approach, scouring the southern hemisphere for most of his appointments. That has worked, broadly, but leaves the RFU no closer to a workable succession plan, hence the links with South Africa’s World Cup-winning coach, Rassie Erasmus.
Since England’s victory in Scotland, Jones has been smarting about something or other and straining at the leash. That told yesterday when a misguided joke — or, put less generously — accusation of racism to a reporter required an apology, which he duly delivered.
It is convention for media duties to be shared between coaches in the build up to a Test, with the head coach even hidden. Since the day before the Murrayfield Test, only Jones has spoken. Today, he was making his sixth media appearance in that time and he has barely offered more than a one-word response to even the most sensible question.
Often, Jones — with the help of friend David “Pemby” Pembroke, who advises him on communication strategy — will have an orchestrated plan, either lavishing praise on opponents or firing barbs their way. This time, the only orchestrated element has been his staccato answers.
Whether it was the reports of the RFU’s flirtation with Erasmus, the backlash to his French “brutality” comments, or perhaps even his team’s performances, something is eating away at Eddie. A victory on this vital weekend would go a long way to fixing that.
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