Eddie Jones Walks Out On England Team Meeting

Eddie Jones has plenty of tricks up his sleeve.

Whether you like him or not, you cannot take away from what Eddie Jones has done for England over the last couple of seasons. The sleeping giants were embarrassed at their own Rugby World Cup and pottered along in the Six Nations for a number of seasons.

As soon as Jones arrived on the scene, things started to look up for England. They were crowned Grand Slam champions, whitewashed Australia in their backyard, before going on an amazing 18-game unbeaten run, capping it off with a second successive Six Nations.

Now with the majority of his senior players rewarded for their form with spots in Warren Gatland’s Lions squad, Jones is left with a number of exciting young talents he hopes will do a job over Argentina this summer.

The Australian has put their success down at times to the ‘leadership group’ that exists within the squad. The team doesn’t just solely rely on captain Dylan Hartley, there are a number of players that pitch in. In order to identify the next batch of ‘leaders,’ Jones tricked his squad at a recent team meeting.

The Daily Mail has revealed that Jones shocked his squad by walking out on a team meeting without saying a word. Jones has 18 uncapped players in his current squad and wanted to see who would stand up, creating a team that can run itself.

“They are the sort of things we are doing to constantly develop the leadership of the players, to develop their thinking about the game, develop more responsibility about being active,” Jones said.

“Be a participant, don’t be a recipient. Professional sport to a large extent is educating players to be a recipient and it’s our great belief that to be a World Cup winning team you need to be a participant.”

“There might be some different players but this is still England, and we want the players to be responsible, self-driven, self-reliant.”

“We have got to trust the players and allow them to fail – there is nothing wrong with failing.”

An interesting approach from Jones, that so far has worked a treat for him and his England team.