Head coach is convinced having the fittest,strongest players will make England Six Nations winnersWhen Conor O’Shea walked up the driveway of the hotel for a dinner on the eve of the Six Nations’ launch last month, a fox ran out in front of him. The immediate thought of the Italy head coach, and which sums up the suspicion that swirls in an era when stories of spying and surveillance are commonplace,was that the animal had been released by Eddie Jones as a joke to imprint the tactical ploy pulled by the Azzurri at Twickenham last year.
Italy threw England out of their stride by not contesting after a tackle and so ensuring there was no offside line. They called the ruse the fox to signify its clever. O’Shea and his coaching team will not be able to reheat it at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome on Sunday because World Rugby changed the law, but Jones and his team can expect another example of left-field thinking from a team that absorb lost their past 12 matches in the Six Nations and only one of those by a single-figure margin.
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Source: guardian.co.uk