The Eddie Jones dickhead policy faces its first test

Eddie Jones is turning the no-dickheads dictum for a successful sporting team on its head with the appointment of Dylan Hartley as the captain of the England side to play Scotland at Murrayfield in the opening round of the 2016 Six Nations tournament this weekend.

In rugby, the All Blacks have won back-to-back Rugby World Cup titles, in 2011 and 2015, with the philosophy that “better people make better players.”

This philosophy means coming down like a ton of bricks on players who behave stupidly and recklessly in defiance of proper standards, on and off the field.

“No dickheads” sums up this up this philosophy in the vernacular. It has been spectacularly successful since 2008 when the assistant coach of the All Blacks Wayne Smith took the head coach Sir Graham Henry aside and told him the bad behaviour off the field, including binge drinking, had to stop.

Henry created a leadership group within the All Blacks that essentially set the standards and enforced them on players who, occasionally, strayed from the path of rectitude. Steve Hansen entrenched this system in his four years as head coach of the All Blacks.

The conventional wisdom now in rugby, and many other sports, is that a no dickheads policy is an essential feature for a successful sports team, or team aspiring to be successful.

Now we have the newly-appointed England coach Eddie Jones, fresh from his triumph with Japan’s Brave Blossoms at the 2015 Rugby World Cup, going against the conventional wisdom and appointing one of rugby’s leading dickheads, Dylan Hartley, as England’s new captain.

The SMH (January 27, 2016) published Hartley’s Shame File. It makes for shameful reading: Banned for eye-gouging in 2007. Banned for biting in 2012. Banned for punching in 2012. Banned for abusing a referee (Wayne Barnes) in 2013: this incident cost Hartley a spot in the 2013 British and Irish Lions squad. Banned for elbowing to the face in 2014. Banned for head-butting in 2015: this incident cost Hartley a spot in England’s 2015 Rugby World Cup squad.

These infractions have cost Hartley a total of 54 weeks off the field in accumulated bans.

In most of the games I have seen Hartley play, as well, he has indulged in constant niggling and dirty play bordering on and often embracing foul play.

He is a serial thug who should not be selected for England, let alone be made the captain and spokesman for the players.

Making someone with a record like this as captain of England, in other words a role model to his players and to rugby-players in England, is madness.

Doesn’t Jones understand that those incidents on the Shame File, aside from the swearing at Wayne Barnes, could have landed Hartley in jail on assault charges.

And the verbal attack on Barnes was a direct and unacceptable challenge to a fundamental principle of rugby, that the referee, on the field especially, must not be physically or verbally abused by a player.

How does Jones think that other referees, knowing the crass behaviour shown to Barnes, are likely to listen to Hartley when, as England’s captain, he wants to dispute a decision made by him?

When Jones appointed Hartley, he admitted that he will “hope and pray” that the decision does not come back to haunt England’s captain. And then, in the next breath, he seemed to sanction the verbal and physical thuggery that Hartley brings to his play by insisting that his captain is best when he is playing “on the edge.”

I can’t understand the logic to this. Why would coach (Jones) encourage his captain (Hartley) to indulge in the sort of play that could have England playing for periods of their matches with only 14 players?

Jones is talking about the need for the rugby world to “fear” England’s forward play.

This means that England will, again according to Jones, get back to a game plan that is based “on a strong scrum, driving maul, and uncompromising clean-out.”

This sounds rather like the England that did not emerge from the pool of death in Rugby World Cup 2015.

It suggests to me that Jones has not learnt anything, as far as England concerned, about what happened to the top European sides in Rugby World Cup 2015.

It is a matter of history that for the first time in Rugby World Cup tournaments, no European side contested the semi-finals. Moreover, England became the first host country in a Rugby World Cup tournament not to contest in the finals.

A statistic that indicates how pathetic the Six Nations teams were in Rugby World Cup 2015 is embraced with the number of tries scored by the leading teams: New Zealand 39, Australia 28, Argentina 27, South Africa 26, Ireland 18, Scotland 17, England 16, France 13, Wales 10.

The best of the European sides, in my view, was Scotland. They almost stole their quarter-final against the Wallabies with a spectacular intercept try minutes from time. And, under the coaching of the New Zealander Vern Cotter, they played more like a southern hemisphere side than the other Six Nations sides.

Cotter was unsuccessful in his first Six Nations tournament, with Scotland finishing last behind Italy!

But if his team can take their Rugby World Cup 2015 form into the Calcutta Cup match against England, they could/should be in line for a strong challenge for the title in 2016.

And I hope that they do this because of the style of open, fluent and interesting style of play Cotter is imposing on Scotland.

There are strong suggestions from the Scottish camp that they will exploit England’s weakness around the field, with their ponderous 6 and 7 breakways (Chris Robshaw and James Haskell), by playing two open side flankers, New Zealanders John Hardie and Blair Cowan.

This suggests to me that Cotter has seen where rugby is evolving, from the stodgy England forward power game to an all-field game where forwards have to have the some of the pace and most of the skills of backs. The all backs, passing game developed by the All Blacks.

Scotland have brought in the former Springboks breakdown coach Richie Guy into their coaching staff to bring in changes to their game at the contact area.

This is a shrewd move. Guy coached the Springboks to be formidable at the breakdown area, and to do this (Dylan Hartley are you listening?) without conceding penalties. To their credit, the Springboks in recent years have not lost the penalty count in many matches, thanks in a large part to Guy’s good work.

To my mind, bringing in Guy to coach Scotland up to standard on the key area in rugby, the breakdown, is much more positive, in the long term, move than the antiquated Eddie Jones promise to somehow “bring back the biff.”

My fearless prediction, therefore, is that Scotland will defeat England at Murrayfield.

Ireland have won the last two Six Nations tournaments. They did not have a strong Rugby World Cup 2015, despite predictions (but not from me) that they could be finalists. Ireland, too, have failed for the first time in 15 years to produce a European Championship Cup side in the quarter finals of this year’s tournament.

Joe Schmidt, Ireland’s successful coach in Six Nations tournaments, is one of three New Zealanders with Cotter and Warren Gatland (Wales) in line for the job of head coach of the British and Irish Lions tour of New Zealand in 2017.

My fearless prediction is that Ireland playing at Dublin will be too organised for Wales that has tended to lose crunch matches in the last few years.

The new coach of France Guy Noves was the godfather of a Toulouse rugby dynasty. Can this success be transferred to the international stage? Sooner or later France has to return to its glory days of dominating European rugby. Perhaps Noves is the coach to make this happen.

Playing a hapless Italy is the best starting match Noves can hope for. A very fearless prediction, therefore, is that France will defeat Italy, hopefully playing with the Napoleonic eclat and esprit that used to be typical of Les Bleus.