Eddie Jones: Le Bomb squad criticism ‘plain daft’, Ireland sorely missed their ‘glitter man’ and the ‘elephant in the room’ regarding Antoine Dupont
Eddie Jones returns to Planet Rugby for his Six Nations column.
Following the fourth round of the 2025 Six Nations that saw France, Scotland and England pick up wins, Planet Rugby welcomes back?one of the world’s leading coaching minds, Eddie Jones, to examine some of the key battlegrounds.
My reflections on the matches over the weekend was what an enjoyable set of games we saw. Some open and thrilling rugby, a lot of tries scored off transition and the performance of the season from France.
I’m going to focus on the Dublin and Twickenham clashes, two games that I thought defined outstanding coaching from both sets of backroom teams.
A glass of Bordeaux
France reminded me of a lovely glass of Bordeaux’s finest. A strong start, getting better the longer you drink it and wonderful down to the last drop!
Firstly, I want to single out one pre-match incident; Ireland‘s loss of James Lowe cannot be underestimated. He has the longest kicking game in world rugby, he’s a key part of their exit strategy in defence, but in attack he offers X-factor and intrigue, very unpredictable and has the ability to create something from nothing.
Ireland play in a very structured manner, but Lowe is their glitter man, someone who can change the course of a match and his loss was a hammer blow. As a head coach, there’s nothing you can do when things happen in the warm-up. You have no time to change things or replan, so it’s suck it up and get on with it. But for Simon Easterby, he couldn’t have lost a more important player and it showed in Ireland’s flatness in attack.
I also want to address the obvious elephant in the room – the Antoine Dupont injury. This was an unfortunate rugby incident and whilst I can understand the sheer frustration of losing a great player, from both a team and wider game perspective, we have to accept that rugby has a lot of big men in confined spaces banging the crap out of each other. Injuries will happen, and whilst awful for both Antoine and for France, it was a rugby incident. Given modern medicine techniques, I have no doubt he’ll be back, but for now, France have to learn to adapt to life without him – just as they did when he was on his Sevens sabbatical.
Screwdrivers and strings
France’s analysis of Ireland and the way they attacked was a masterclass of coaching analysis and I have to take my hat off to Fabien Galthie for his planning precision.
There were two key elements to this.
Firstly, the bench impacts and starting XV. There’s little doubt that Galthie saw this game in two distinct parts – the need to defend early Irish aggression and the opportunity to up attacking intensity once legs tired. He knew that his depth was far greater than that of Ireland in the forwards, so he created a point of difference with the 7-1 split.
Secondly, they unpicked a very direct Irish defence with intellect. We talk about direct carry attacking – screwdriver attacks when you go right to the head of the defence – that’s something that the physicality of the Irish D copes with. What France did, and they did it from their first attack, is to use string attacking – and by that I mean small, short passing, right at the face of the defence, to move the point of contact to the softest shoulder.
This requires handling skills from all of the forwards and real confidence to execute under pressure. France took the power shoulders away from the contact and used their big carriers to make the first hit – Jean-Baptiste Gros was a key man early on in doing this – followed by lightning rucks and then a passing formation in two and three-man close pods behind.
I have read that Maxime Lucu‘s introduction changed France’s shape – but this is incorrect. They started with the string passes from the off and it was a clearly planned tactic to stretch the Irish defence.
Exiting key
I also want to praise the French defence; the first 15 minutes was a masterclass in accuracy. France made the first 38 tackles of the match and missed none. It was statement defence and Ireland lacked the points of difference to make their possession pay. We also saw that pressure affect the way Sam Prendergast played – he crept further and further back and away from contact – that meant Irish exit was short and, without Lowe who is their safety valve, they really only had two primary exit options from nine and ten.
Contrast that with France; they consistently made 50 and 60m exits – two nines with exceptional distance from the base of the ruck – and they also had three clearing options in their back division, making sure that Ireland’s attack restart took place from the halfway line or beyond, whereas Ireland were allowing France to restart their attack from around the Irish 10m line, a real key contrast. Simply put, France were consistently 15 to 20m closer the Irish line at their restart moment from a lineout or similar, a huge advantage in Test rugby.
Le Bombs
Finally on France, I want to return to the finisher impact. Whatever people want to say about bench splits, rugby is now a 23-man game and has been for a long time. You use the assets available to you and if you’ve the depth of forward France (or South Africa) possess, why wouldn’t you use it? Claiming it’s unfair is plain daft – as a coach you’re there to win a Test match, not wonder about the feelings of your opponents!
What Galthie did was pick specific skills for specific jobs. The defensive abilities of the starters and the carrying carnage of the finishers. I thought Manny Meafou caused carnage and I loved the ambition of Cyril Baille with ball in his soft hands, who added so much to those string attacks around the breakdown.
Think of it like this; first half, defence set. Second half, attack set – and use the men you have in skill driven roles.
A word too for the French back-row – they performed brilliantly to a man; Paul Boudehent has managed to fill Charles Ollivon’s shoes both sides of the ball, and maybe even added something in terms of abrasion. Gregory Alldritt was huge for 50 minutes, and Francois Cros’ first half efforts in defence, especially that first onslaught, were remarkable, including a key cut-down tackle on the line.
An exceptional performance by France, but one that’s exposed the fact that Ireland need to rejuvenate their team and increase their pace.
Pimms
If France were a glass of Bordeaux, England were a pint of Pimms – a lovely sunshine performance!
I am thrilled for Steve Borthwick. This is a competitive Italian team with a world class set of three-quarters and England did exactly what was needed.
Again, like France losing Dupont, England lost a key player in Ollie Lawrence, but the replacement strategy paid off. Marcus Smith came on and thrived in transition and open space; Italy kicked poorly, Tommy Freeman dominated the contestables in the tramlines and England were able to get structure into their attack.
That structure was no accident and I have to single out Fraser Dingwall’s contribution. When you have a club 10/12 combination, you have a working unit that know each other’s games. Dingwall is a very intelligent player and his second set of eyes, used to working together with Fin Smith, allowed England to scan and execute a lot better.
Daly thrives
The Lawrence injury allowed Elliot Daly to thrive in his favourite position at 13. Elliot is one of those players that is so versatile but enables others around him to shine. He’s like Sam Curran in the England cricket team – he has so many positives, a real understated all-rounders talent set, to bring and add variety in all he does. His kicking game came into its own and his experienced eyes spotted seam splits in the Italian defence that resulted in some key moments – notable the Tom Willis and Freeman tries, where his vision created the start of the moves.
Lastly – finishers. England are stacked with high quality back-row forwards, so why not make best use of them? The starters were all superb, particularly Tom Curry, but they can drain the tank knowing they’ve quality behind them.
It’s all building up to a great final Six Nations weekend. England cannot afford to underestimate Wales – form doesn’t matter when you travel to Cardiff and anything might happen under the pressure of the Principality. France have everything in their own hands, but they need to blow hot and hot, and not expose themselves to a fall-off performance, something they’ve been guilty of in the past.
