The bizarre reason why Eddie Jones dropped one of his most talented players during last year’s Six Nations has finally been clarified 11 months later. Wing Max Malins was brutally axed before England’s final game with France in Paris and has now revealed it was because Jones disliked his body language.
Teammates say the 26-year-old, who scored two tries against Scotland last weekend on his return to Test match rugby, was in tears after being told his naturally relaxed demeanour was not good enough. Jones subsequently omitted the Saracens player from the summer tour to Australia and the Calcutta Cup fixture was Malins’ first England appearance since the incident.
Malins said it came as a complete “shock” when, early in the buildup to the France Test, Jones told him he was dropping him because of his body language during a routine ‘walk through’ in training. “That was the reason given,” said Malins. “I didn’t understand it and was taken aback by it.
“I’d like to think my attitude was always there. I’m quite a relaxed guy, not necessarily buzzing around the place all the time. Maybe my relaxed nature put a thought in his head. It was gutting at the time. When you’re in that shirt and it gets taken away from you, it’s a tough one to take. All you can do is take a step back from it and move forward.”
England lost comfortably in Paris and Jones was eventually sacked after the national team endured a disappointing autumn. Malins and his club-mate Ben Earl, whom Jones also regularly ignored, ended up going to Mykonos on holiday together to drown their sorrows after failing to make Jones’s summer tour squad. “It does help having people alongside you who realise what you’re going through. It was a short and sweet trip but a thoroughly enjoyable one. It’s safe to say we weren’t passing a ball on the beach.”
Malins’ two tries against Scotland, consequently, felt like a belated reward for his efforts to overcome last year’s setback. “It certainly highlighted to me how quickly it could all be taken away and how you should never take being in this environment for granted. It certainly stokes something in the belly to push on.”
England’s new head coach, Steve Borthwick, has been using a very different form of man management – “He doesn’t necessarily highlight your downfalls … it’s pleasing to hear and gives you confidence as a player” – and is also poised to recall Jack Willis and Henry Slade for the meeting with Italy at Twickenham this Sunday. Willis’s last Six Nations game was against Italy in the same fixture two years ago when the back-rower suffered a serious knee injury which sidelined him for more than a year.
Henry Arundell is also expected to make a Six Nations debut off the bench with a potential switch also being considered at fly-half. Owen Farrell wore 12 against Scotland but, barring a late rethink, could be named at 10 when the starting XV is unveiled on Friday. Reports in France, meanwhile, say the Northampton and England lock David Ribbans has agreed a three-year-deal with Toulon.
