Rugby World Cup Team Focus: England

Eddie Jones’ England side head into the Rugby World Cup as the second favourites for the tournament as the competition gets underway on Friday as hosts Japan take on Russia. It hasn’t been plain sailing for Jones at the England helm and as many question marks loom over his head as answers.

England went on a phenomenal run of 17 straight wins after their shocking pool stage exit from the 2015 World Cup as hosts and that included a first Six Nations Gland Slam for 13 years and a whitewash test victory over the Aussies.

The wheels started to fall off in 2018 as they lost their final three Six Nations games and then the first two tests of their tour in South Africa. They had a promising start to this years Six Nations however that was ended by Wales and then they went onto squander a large half time lead to draw against Scotland.

Eddie Jones has named a nice mix of youth and experience in his 31 man squad for the Rugby World Cup with Saracens the best represented club with 8 players at the tournament in Japan.

England are a side you can never doubt their quality but question whether they have the consistency as a group to go all the way in a knockout competition like the Rugby World Cup.

Jones has got what he wanted in bigger backs, Joe Cokansiga from Bath scored a try on debut against Japan and the ever impressive Jonny May was the top tryscorer at the Six Nations and will be a big threat here at the Rugby World Cup.

England are heavy favourites to win their pool and they should do without a problem, however that’s likely to put them in the firing line of the All Blacks. Can they go all the way?

Check out our Rugby World Cup Outright Predictions for who we think will win the tournament, our top try scorer prediction and also an outsider we fancy to make it out of their pool.