Eddie Jones has called on his England side to channel Muhammad Ali in order to “atone for what we did” in defeat to Scotland when they take on Italy in Rome on Sunday.
England blew a seven-point lead with 20 minutes to go to lose 20-17 at Murrayfield, leaving them with defeat in their first game for the third Six Nations in a row.
Jones named a much-changed team full of zippy runners to face Italy, and is looking to “ruthlessly light up Rome” with a display of dominance like Ali’s over Sonny Liston in their second flight in 1965, which produced an iconic image.
“We want to be ruthless,” he said. “We’ve got a chance on Sunday to atone for what we did last Saturday.
“We can only do that from being really ruthless and having that vision of Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston. That sort of image in your head where you want to really go at them.”
Jones has left himself with an extremely experienced bench, featuring six players with more than 30 caps, four of whom started last week. Jones wants them to finish the job after the work of more inexperienced colleagues.
“With the players we’ve got off the bench, if you look at our squad we’re probably missing seven frontline players, very conservatively,” said Jones.
“When you look at the quality of our bench, it’s testament to the strength of the squad.
“We’ve got what would be deemed a very young and inexperienced team starting. I think it’s around 350 caps which is half the number of caps you need in your side to win a World Cup.
“We’ve got a nice blend for this game of a young and vibrant starting XV and a more worldly and experienced finishing eight. There is the possibility the finishing eight will have the opportunity to be Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston.”
Jones said he had been impressed by his players’ response to defeat in Edinburgh, even though captain Tom Curry and one of his three vice-captains Luke Cowan-Dickie had barely trained this week due to “bumps and bruises”.
“These are the toughest weeks to prepare for,” said Jones, “but it’s made easier that we had a disappointing result against Scotland, so the attitude, application of the players has been first-class.
“In these weeks you sometimes lose that one or two per cent discretionary effort, but I haven’t seen that. We’ve prepared really well. Italy are an improving team.
“The response has been good. They were extremely disappointed after the game. We bounced back, trained on Tuesday night, doing an old-school session under lights that wouldn’t qualify for telecast, and they did really well. They had a good session on Wednesday and trained really well today.
“The thing about these situations is there’s a lot of outside noise, a lot of opinions, a lot of judgement on players, and it’s important for the team to understand what is important, what we need to do rather than getting seduced by other comments. Staying committed to the team is the most important thing. I’ve seen a lot of that this week.”
One of the six players promoted to start this week is Alex Dombrandt, who Jones compared to the legendary South Africa No8.
“He’s not an orthodox No8 – he’s a free-running No8,” he said.
“He reminds me of Bobby Skinstad, as he gets himself into good positions to attack. This is the sort of game that’s going to have a fair bit of space, so it’ll suit him.”
