The England squad will enjoy the warmth of the Algarve, if enjoy is the right word with Eddie Jones promising three days of training this week unlike anything they have experienced. But after the first two rounds of the Six Nations next month they could find themselves trembling in Tbilisi.
Jones is planning a repeat of the training session England arranged with Wales in November, when the two sets of forwards opposed each other in a series of scrums and lineouts in Bristol as they prepared for their respective autumn international series. The Australian, who last week signed a two-year contract extension with the Rugby Football Union to take him through to 2021, believes one of the aspects that defines whether a player is able to take the step up from club rugby is the ability to thrive in tough training conditions.
The head coach says: “The players loved the session against Wales because when they train, they want to get something out of it. If they just want to go through the motions, they are the wrong players. Our squad is developing the great attitude of wanting to train to get better. The only way you get better in the scrum is to scrummage against people who are better than you.
“We have got a couple of fallow weeks in the Six Nations and we have plans. Tbilisi is a nice place at this time of year. It is cold and we could potentially do that. It has great red wine and the meat is good. They have a massive scrum and the strongest pack in the world. Babies there are born with beards. We are just planning at the moment: we also have a good relationship with Scotland, Wales and Italy; don’t know about Ireland. We are looking at improving our training and getting a higher quality of opposition. And travel makes it tougher.”
Jones makes the most of his training camps because his access to players is limited; there was a high casualty list after one such gathering in Brighton last season, much to the annoyance of some Premiership coaches, but there will be no let-up as he counts down to the World Cup in Japan next year and the trophy he covets.
“The first three days [in Portugal this week] will be like a mini pre‑season,” says Jones. “The players won’t be doing much rugby, rather base running and base lifting and some base tactical work before they get into the team work. It will be a completely different camp from any they have experienced in the past. And I am looking for an extra 15-25%.
“Training is always intense. You don’t get anywhere in life doing things easy. I have never seen any team in the world who wins consistently that trains soft. I don’t understand that in English rugby. I really struggle with the notion that when you train hard you are ‘beasting’ the player. It is a contradiction in terms: the game is hard, it tests you all the time. So if you don’t prepare for that, how do you expect to win? You can have nice soft training sessions but you won’t win.”
That said, Jones accepts that some of his players who went on the Lions tour to New Zealand last summer are showing signs of fatigue, not least the prop Mako Vunipola, who has made 15 appearances for Saracens and two for England this season. “It’s individual,” says Jones. “Some players are jumping out of their skins, others have definitely got some fatigue about them.
“We will look after them individually this week and some will be on special programmes for all of it but we only have them for a certain period of time and have to play Test matches when they will have to be jumping out of their skins or they won’t play. Mako looked a bit tired against Ospreys [last Saturday], but his defensive effort was absolutely outstanding. He loves rugby and rebounds quickly: take him out of rugby and he would be sad. He will be all right this week, a nice feed, a bit of boxing, a bit of sun and he will have half a smile. I think Billy [his brother] got all the happy genes. You cannot expect guys to be eight out of 10 every week: you have to allow them to drop but Mako always fights for his team.”
Jones needs Mako Vunipola, with the next four looseheads on his list either banned or injured for the opening rounds. Two uncapped players, Exeter’s Alec Hepburn and Harlequins’ Lewis Boyce, will be in Portugal ahead of more established club players such as Ben Moon at Exeter and Saracens’ Richard Barrington. Boyce and Hepburn were Anglo-Welsh Cup starters in November, third-choice for their clubs and far from obvious picks, given that one will be on the bench in Rome for England’s Six Nations opener on 4 February, but Jones has always trusted his instincts.
“It is a bit like a racehorse trainer going to a yearling sale; there are certain things you are looking for, like physically tough players,” he says. “The first thing I try to find out about a player is their background, where they are from, what they have done, how they carry themselves, their physical size, the way they look at other players on the field. There are all these bits and pieces. International rugby is much tougher than the club game. I won’t go into Boyce’s background but he has had a tough life.”
Last season Jones took a punt on Boyce’s club colleague Kyle Sinckler, who finished it as a Lion, but after having his collar felt at the end of the New Zealand tour and then serving a ban for making contact with the eye area of an opponent, he has ground to make up. “This is the test of how much Kyle wants it,” Jones says. “Otherwise he is going to become a pantomime character. He has got to show he really wants to be a Test prop. We are going to back him totally and give him every opportunity because he’s a good kid.”
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