If you can’t beat ‘em, hire ‘em. When England’s players last saw Felix Jones he was assistant coach to the South African team who edged past them in last year’s Rugby World Cup semi-final in Paris. Now here he is in their inner sanctum. An Irishman with a red rose on his chest, looking to share some Springbok trade secrets ahead of this year’s Six Nations championship.
The question is: which ones? The “traffic light” communication system from the Boks’ coaching box? The 7-1 forward bench split? Big-name water-carriers? For now, suggests Jones, the answer is none of the above. “I don’t think you will be seeing it at Twickenham,” he murmured this week, when asked if Rassie Erasmus’s familiar traffic lights would be reappearing. What about a replica “Nuke Squad” of beefy replacements? “I think that’s probably a bit further down the line, too.”
