Six Nations united in change and ready to attack new challenges
It is just under three months since the World Cup, little enough that a lot of players and coaches are still reckoning with where it went wrong, long enough that others have moved on. There were four new head coaches and four new captains at the Six Nations launch last week and there are 45 new players in the six squads. But a lot of the conversation was about what went on last autumn and especially in those eight days when England reached new heights in beating the All Blacks and fresh depths in losing to the Springboks. It is a reminder that life moves on quickly in Test rugby.
The first thing England had planned for their training camp, Eddie Jones said, was a frank conversation. “We need to have a good chat to start off with. What are the significant things we learned? What are the mistakes we don’t want to make again?”
He has his own ideas about that. Jones has a new mantra for the team this season: “We want to be the greatest team the game of rugby has ever seen.”
Related: Six Nations 2020: how will your team perform this year?
The way Jones says this it sounds as if he is trying to help the team get used to being ambitious because the last time they had the chance, in the World Cup final, they played as if they were fazed by the opportunity.
“What we’ve done well over four years is that we’ve developed an English style of play but now we’ve come to a period where we need to renew it,” he says. “We don’t want to go too far away from what’s been successful but we need to add a little bit and maybe subtract a little bit.”
He has promised they want to speed the game up, “find a new way of attacking”. It won’t be easy, especially since he is also dealing with the fall‑out from the Saracens scandal. But then, under Jones, nothing ever is.
England are not the only side planning to change the way they play. Wales are cooking up something under their new head coach, Wayne Pivac. He says his philosophy is: “If it’s not broke, don’t try and fix it”. So he will not be tampering too much with their defence even though the man behind it, Shaun Edwards, has moved on to France. Their attack, though, is going to be overhauled.
“The expectation is we’re going to move a bit more ball but that will take a bit of time,” Pivac says. “It took a bit of time with the Scarlets to change the mentality, hone the skillsets and get everybody to understand their roles, so I’m sure this will be no different.”
His captain, Alun Wyn Jones, has already warned this could be a bumpy road. “You’ll get some players that will look for the shadows and say: ‘I hope it doesn’t come to me’ and others that will have a go,” he says. “But we’re very fortunate we’ve got a group who are relishing the opportunity to be challenged and be part of this evolution.”
Related: Shaun Edwards: ‘I sensed France really wanted me. That’s why I went’
Ireland are another team talking about overhauling their attack. Their new coach, Andy Farrell, has brought in Mike Catt to be his “ideas man” and Catt has been busy scheming with the new captain, Johnny Sexton. “A lot will change,” Sexton says. “It’s pretty clear in some areas where we’re going, like in attack.”
One gets the sense this will be Farrell’s team. It is the first time he has been able to run the show himself. “I’m excited about taking the team in the direction I want to take them,” he says. “I’ve been in pro sport for 28 years now. I’ve been waiting for this day to arrive.” The prospect is formidable.
Scotland’s Gregor Townsend is relying on his new captain, Stuart Hogg, to galvanise the squad. “Those things don’t get talked about much when we talk about captaincy,” Townsend says. “People think the role is about speaking to referees but Stuart’s going to bring knowledge, enthusiasm and energy. He’ll give other players the confidence to play what they see and to make the right decisions.”
He will have to do it without his first-choice fly-half, Finn Russell, after he was scratched from the opening match because he went awol from training. It feels like a bad omen.
“Nothing’s going to change in terms of how we want to play, we want to play quick rugby, we want to play with ambition,” Hogg says. “I believe with the gameplan we want to implement we’re going to be scoring tries. So it’s finding the balance of when to play and when not to play.”
Of the six it is France who have the most room for improvement because they have been so bad for so long. In the past eight years France have finished in the top half of the table once, in 2017, when they were third. Spurred by the prospect of the home World Cup in 2023, their head coach, Fabien Galthié, has drawn on the two junior teams that won the U20 World Championship in 2018 and 2019. He has brought in Edwards and set him to work with a group of 19 uncapped players, under their new 26-year-old captain, Charles Ollivon.
“We’re inexperienced but that doesn’t stop us from being ambitious,” Galthié says. “It’s my responsibility to unite everybody around one ambition, which is to make sure we bring France back to the fore.”
Then there is Italy. They also have a new coach, the former Springbok Franco Smith, who knows their set-up from the years he spent at Treviso. Smith says they’re “turning a new page” but before they do Sergio Parisse will play his last game for them, against England on the final Saturday.
One of the first changes Smith made was to select a senior leadership group to fill the gap left by Parisse. He has appointed seven, which gives you an idea of just how big an influence Parisse has been. It will help, Smith says, that the club teams have agreed he is going to have more control over his Test players when they are away from the national team.
Never mind being the greatest team the game has ever seen. The way the tournament is shaping, this spring it will be hard enough to be the greatest team in Europe.
