Eddie Jones is just a call away

Eddie Jones. Picture: Rodger Bosch

Eddie Jones. Picture: Rodger Bosch

Published Feb 4, 2016

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Cape Town - Eddie Jones left behind some pearls of wisdom for the Stormers despite departing for England after only two weeks in Cape Town.

These gems seem to be the foundation on which the Cape franchise have built their new way of approaching Super Rugby in 2016.

Jones is not the architect of their new, dynamic approach, because director of rugby Gert Smal has been talking about moving towards an all-encompassing game plan for a while now, but the former Wallaby coach set them on their way to perfecting this way of playing.

“We spent a couple of days with him. The brilliance of having Eddie here, we had all this knowledge,” Stormers coach Robbie Fleck said this week.

But those pointers were not about how to construct fancy moves from set pieces, or the angles players need to run. It wasn’t about how the flyhalf needs to attack the gain line or that the centres need to create space for the wings.

Actually, Jones’ advice was rather simple.

“He simplified things,” Fleck said.

“At the end of the day, his big message was that rugby hasn’t changed much over the years. The fundamentals of rugby are still the same, and it’s just about having the confidence to go forward and (execute).

“We don’t want to complicate things much, especially because it’s a young group of players; we really want to make this transition into Super Rugby an easy process by simplifying our game plan and really focusing on the core fundamentals. That is what this game is all about.”

Fleck made reference to the All Blacks when explaining what Jones means when he talks about simplifying things.

There’s a feeling that South African teams aren’t fundamentally sound. In other words, our teams don’t do the basics as well as their New Zealand counterparts.

This might be true, but it’s also a fact that the life has been coached out of SA players over the years.

So while the basics may not be up to scratch, our players also don’t have the ability to think on their feet, because they have been brainwashed to do certain things in certain positions on the field.

So, while the All Blacks do the basics really well, their players do tend to use the best options on attack and defence.

“In SA we always try to find the next best thing and we tend to move on quite quickly without doing the basics well,” Fleck said.

“SA coaches come under a lot of fire for certain game... at the end of the day this game is a simple game, and if we do those basics right, then that is a step in the right direction.

“But it’s not just a case of having plan one, we have got to have plan one, two, three and four as well.

“But we have got to be able to execute those plans effectively.”

Fleck revealed that Jones is also just a phone call away if the Stormers want some more advice.

“Eddie sent me a message through his agent that he is available. It’s pretty hectic at the moment, but he is available at any stage for me to give him a shout,” the Stormers coach said.

“When he left here, he said those options were there and I’m really grateful for that.”

Cape Argus

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