The Japanese equivalent of deja vu is called kishikan and there is plenty of it in the air following the announcement of the England team to face Australia in Saturday’s World Cup quarter-final. Suddenly it is 2015 all over again, with George Ford ousted from the No 10 shirt on the eve of a defining game. English rugby, for better or worse, has lurched back to the future.
It is a huge call in anyone’s language on the eve of the squad’s biggest game for four years. Ford has been his side’s best player in Japan to date: alert, deft, skilful and smart. Owen Farrell, by contrast, has not been nearly as influential at 12. So how has Eddie Jones reacted? By picking Farrell at 10 and redeploying a “disappointed” (Jones’s word) Ford on the bench. If England win – as they have their last six Test meetings against Australia in the Jones era – it will be seen as a masterstroke. If not, Jones will be remembered as the obsessive tinkerman who flip-flopped once too often.
Written by Robert Kitson in Beppu
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/oct/17/england-rugby-world-cup-eddie-jones-owen-farrell under the title “England lurch back to the future as Eddie Jones gambles on Owen Farrell | Robert Kitson”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
