New faces can turn Quins into contenders

Q&A

Ben Jaycock talks to 54-time England No.8 Nick Easter about his optimism for former side Harlequins following their coaching changes and hears his verdict on the Red Rose chances at the World Cup

Ben Jaycock: There's been a lot of coaching changes at Harlequins recently with Danny Wilson announced as new coach, Billy Millard coming in as DoR and Tabai Matson moving to a performance development role, what are your thoughts on those moves?

Nick Easter: From the outside looking in, they won the Premiership with the assistant coaches working together. They then brought in Tabai to be head coach but I heard the other coaches were running and planning the sessions, so he was sort of an equal with them. To a lot of degrees you are an equal but at times there does need to be direction in terms of where you're going. Billy Millard has clearly seen the right openings for each coach.

Tabai will be really good in terms of the performance department and opening up a window there because of his extensive knowledge of the game in the North and Southern Hemisphere. They had Jerry Flannery running the defence and the forwards which is a lot of work when you probably needed a bit more expertise and detail in one of those areas, so Danny Wilson has moved in there. From speaking to people in and around the club that I'm still in contact with, they had a disappointing season last year and regressed a little bit so those changes needed to be made.

BJ: The signing of Joe Launchbury looks to be a key one that will beef up the Quins pack and provide lineout options. How influential do you think Launchbury can be?

NE: They've done really well in their recruitment. I would say it's shrewd but Joe Launchbury is a bloody obvious signing if he's willing to go there to be honest. Shrewd is when you pick a diamond in the rough but this guy's a shining diamond and a hell of a player. He'll add a huge amount to that forward pack in terms of his all-round quality, work rate, carrying, tackle, set piece stuff. It's good recruitment along with all the London Irish boys they've managed to pick up. Sadly in the misfortune of London Irish they've managed to pick up some good guys. Being in the same vicinity of south west and west London, means there's less moving parts for the players finding new clubs. There was enough in the budget to pick up some real gems. It's exciting, not a complete fresh start but enough changes to keep it fresh.

BJ: Harlequins won the Premiership in 2021 being player led; is that the best way for Quins to be successful?

NE: I don't think long-term you can have a player-led squad. You've got to have the direction and be led by the guy at the top, who will be setting the vision, the goals, looking at the longer term alongside the shorter. Players will always look at the shorter term. They're not involved in the recruitment and playing style in years to come. It's more about the here and now in terms of the playing style and how they're going to attack each week.

Like Mark McCall at Saracens, you need someone with the overview who despite successful and unsuccessful periods keeps them on the same track rather than getting carried away when things are going well or too down when things aren't. Players are very short-term so if they're running the show, you can have short-term benefits to it but longer term you need a coach or a DoR to have that overview and clear direction that filters down to the coaches and the playing group. It's not dictatorial as a director of rugby or coach, you have to have player involvement as they're the guys playing the game now and have the feel, they are the ones who are under stress having to execute and make decisions and they should be part of the discussion as to how you attack each week and the season. It would be too much of a burden to have too much of a long-term view when their playing career can end pretty quickly. Rightly so they're concentrating on here and now.

BJ: Are you expecting Quins to compete back at the top of the table in the play-offs next season?

NE: The Premiership's getting weaker at the moment in terms of the quality of players due to the salary cap being reduced. The French club game is flying and the Premiership is probably at its lowest point, certainly last season. But it will still remain competitive, the salary cap maintains that.

They'll be some standout sides, Sale and Saracens will be up there, Leicester have been very shrewd with their head coach appointment (Dan McKellar), they'll play a little more rugby than they didd in the past but build on the set piece and kick chase foundations they had under Steve (Borthwick). I do expect Harlequins to get better and be around the play-offs, they've got enough seniority to know what went wrong last year to put it right.

Harlequins have got quite a few players involved with England but with the Prem Cup taking place during most of the World Cup, that won't have much of an impact either. Whereas in the past you could get a good head start if you didn't have too much representation and vice versa if you do.

BJ: Moving onto England, what are your thoughts on Steve Borthwick's side?

NE: I like the look of a lot of it. There's certain positions where we're struggling for depth in. At the moment due to injuries, I think hooker, tight head and No.8 are concerns. I was surprised to see Zach Mercer left out, Billy (Vunipo la) has got a knock on his knee, what's he going to be like when he comes back? Alex Dom brandt had an indifferent Six Nations but has caps under his belt and has worked under the Borthwick regime. I would have kept Mercer in there, he's been tearing up trees over in France. Everyone has their own methods of selection, it's great for Danny Care it looks as if he's going to go now. He's got a huge amount of experience and has still got huge hunger as he's only been to one World Cup in 2015 and we know how that turned out, so he's got some demons to put to bed. He's still cutting it; at club level he's always up there as one of the best players.

England need to make sure their clear identity is clear in these next few weeks, we saw in the Six Nations that the traditional strengths of English rugby were missing; the set piece, physicality, defence were very poor. They kept talking about quick ball in attack but we didn't really get to see too much of that. Having plenty of fight in you is only going to get you so far, you need to have real quality and you need to have a game plan to go to under pressure. I'm excited to see in the World Cup warm-ups what Borthwick and his leadership group have decided as far as how England are going to play. The pressure can build up, their toughest game (Argentina) in the group is to begin with which is always good and then you can start planning for the quarter-finals if they go well.

BJ: There's a lot of experience and old heads, with the squad not too dissimilar to 2019. Do you see that as a good thing or a bad thing?

NE: It's worked before in the past. In 2007 no one knew what the squad was going to be then. We went back to a number of players from 2003 and the experience was a big help in turning things around. If the quality isn't there to push those guys out, World Cup history shows you that experience wins World Cups. Caps is a particular statistic that gets you far. That's probably a big reason why Danny Care's still involved, why Joe Marler's brought back,

“England need to make sure their identity is clear in these next few weeks”

Billy Vunipola's got a reprieve as well after his falling out with Steve. There's a formula there but you've also got to have the quality. Steve's only had five games with them and not much time to implement anything new and they've got it now. In seven weeks they should pick things up and should be agreeing on what their strengths are.

BJ: How important are these months together in camp in the build up to a World Cup?

NE: You have to maximise every minute. We don't have the year, two years or even four years to understand each other, and build relationships under pressure in games. Things can look good in training but under the pressure of a game knowing the timing of the man next to you and having those previous relationships and cohesion is invaluable. It's how they structure training sessions to match what they believe are their best combinations.

BJ: England have been written off by many, do you feel they have a chance of going deep in the tournament?

NE: Being on the easier side of the draw is a huge help. If you look at the four teams on the other side of the draw (New Zealand, South Africa, France, Ireland) they're going to have had three big games before the semi-final. France and New Zealand maybe two but Ireland and South Africa, with Scotland in there, will have had three games.

At World Cups you can only peak for one week or two weeks but you've got to know how to win as it's about grinding out wins. If England can hit the ground running they can then look at tinkering a few things, look at rotation and have then got three weeks until they can get to a quarter-final which they can attack. If that quarter-final is against one of the other weaker groups, then do they have to necessarily peak for that? They'll want to because knockout rugby is a funny old game but they could get away with winning without firing on all cylinders. Semi-final you need to and then as we know come the final time, anything can happen. We have to take advantage of the draw we've got.