In his Rolling Maul blog for The Times, Stephen Jones wonders about the value of performance next to victory as the November Tests near.
"This is by no means a new debate, but I would be interested to hear your take on it. At this time of year, we are handed the dilemma: winning or performance? My good friend Mr Barnes is very keen on this debate, and so have been a whole succession of England coaching supremos.
"On Saturday, England play Australia. Both teams are missing key players, but England are missing a whole raft of them. Martin Johnson duly has let it be known that while victory would be all fine and dandy, it is more important for England to give a performance. What this means in essence is that Johnson and his men seem prepared to lose the game if certain good things happen along the way.
"That nice Mr Barnes always takes the same route. In our Round Table chat last week, he again suggested that the really vital games come round only every four years and if we see something from the England team this week that will give us hope for the future, then we need not worry as to whether they finish ahead on the scoreboard or not."
RSS feed
