Six Nations clash with Scotland reminds Eddie Jones and Dylan Hartley how far England have come

Eddie Jones went two years back in time recently when he viewed a video nasty of England’s first training session with him in charge and it proved how far the team have come.

Jones takes his side to Murrayfield to face Gregor Townsend’s Scotland on Saturday with a record of 24 wins in 25 games in charge and on course for a third Six Nations title.

The Australian is back where it all started for him on the England beat with a new captain in Dylan Hartley, a new-look team and a 15-9 win over the Scots in Edinburgh in 2016 which helped them to a first Grand Slam for 13 years.

But Jones admitted that reviewing that first session reminded him that he thought he might have made a monumental error by taking charge of the team. A team that had just failed to get out of their pool in a home World Cup.

“I remember the first game, we were only together for two weeks so we only had four training runs,” Jones recalled. “I remember after the first training run, I have just had a look at it on video the other day, and I was thinking ‘Goodness me what have I got myself into here?’

“After 20 minutes they were just shot. Couldn’t run any more. Not fit enough and the basics of Test match is physical condition. You’ve got to be fit enough to play. And when you win games, as we have consistently in the last 20 minutes, part of it is fitness and part of it is tactical nous. How many games have you seen the All Blacks win in the last 20 minutes? Plenty.

“And that’s because they practice it. We practice it now too . We’ve got the base now to be able to do that and we’re anticipating on Saturday a tough old game. It’s probably come down to the last 20 minutes – which team can hold their nerve, which team can execute under pressure, who’s got the stronger leadership group.

“They weren’t fit. They wanted to play a system of attack, a system of defence and I thought ‘this is going to be hard work’. I was massively surprised how quickly they changed. It is hard for good players to change and it is a great credit to the players that they have been able to accept that they needed to change and they have done that.”

Hartley is Jones’ right-hand man on and off the field and on this weekend will win his 92nd cap moving past Jonny Wilkinson’s number of Tests for England and becoming his country’s second most capped player.

Jones provoked outrage when he replaced Chris Robshaw with Hartley because of the hooker’s chequered disciplinary record but has stuck by his man ever since.

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It is odds-on that Hartley will still be captain in the World Cup in Japan whatever the growing band of people who think Jamie George should start say.

“He is not driven by personal milestones,” Jones added. “Dylan has given the team leadership – we are evolving a group of players under him that are assisting him,that is our growth area going forward.

“He has accepted and understood the responsibility more. It is a 24-hour job, you can never switch off. You have got to be on it. You have to be pair of eyes. You have got to be watching, if they are stretching are they stretching properly? You have got to be looking at the players’ behaviour because ultimately it is his team. When they run out at Murrayfield on Saturday he is the only one that controls that team.”