Eddie Jones is rugby's equivalent of Jose Mourinho, such is his willingness to act like a bit of an arse on the field, as he believes it gives his side an advantage on the pitch. Jones has adopted one of Mourinho's training policies, namely something he terms "tactical periodisation", which is a fancy phrase for training sessions performed at match level intensity.
Jones' media performances are redolent of Mourinho as well, so frequently does he insult people. His talk around the Italy game was quintessential Mourinho: he patronised his inferior opponents by saying that World Rugby should help them out, before callously throwing them under a bus to deflect attention from his own side's performance. Jones said that what was on show at Twickenham was "not a game of rugby", comparing it to the infamous underarm bowling technique of Trevor Chapelle.
So Jones has placed himself in that grey area Mourinho has crafted for himself of being unsure whether everything he says and does is carefully planned with specific intent, or whether he, like everyone else, is prone to dropping a bollock every now and again.
So details emerging from England training today will be coloured by that: is this a deliberate attempt to get under Scotland's skin, or is simply a bit of a hapless error, akin to Nick Faldo writing Ryder Cup pairings on a napkin?
The Telegraph snapped a picture of a whiteboard on the side of England's training pitch today, and reckon that it bears the names of the starting line-up against Scotland.
The picture is below.
Have England mistakenly revealed their starting team to face Scotland on Saturday?https://t.co/gaBYOVavd9 pic.twitter.com/ERsRpDy6WI
— Telegraph Rugby (@TelegraphRugby) March 7, 2017
In the likely event that you can't read the writing on the board, the team is as follows:
1 Marler
2 Hartley
3 Cole
4 Lawes
5 Launchbury
6 Itoje
7 Haskell
8 Billy Vunipola
9 Care
10 Ford
11 Nowell
12 Farrell
13 Daly
14 Joseph
15 Brown
Jones knew that this specific session was open to the media, so perhaps it is a deliberate attempt to throw Scotland off. Or maybe, just maybe, he's dropped a bollock? Nonetheless, it is hard to imagine Scotland relishing the return of Billy Vunipola.
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