BAGSHOT, England: England coach Eddie Jones’s conviction that his bench players are equally if not more important than his starters is so complete that he thinks they should have the same shirt number as the players they replace on the field. Jones has taken to describing his replacements as “finishers” and, after making three changes to his starting team to face New Zealand on Saturday, he was somewhat exasperated at the media’s interest in the fact that Chris Ashton was chosen to start ahead of Jack Nowell – swapping their roles from last week’s win over South Africa. The Australian made a similar change in the front row where Ben Moon was given the loosehead berth from the start ahead of Exeter club mate Alec Hepburn – another straight swap from the Springbok game. “All we’ve done is change the order – he (Ashton) will start and Jack will finish. I don’t see a difference. If I had my way, I’d have all the players numbered the same,” Jones said on Thursday. “History tells you that New Zealand win most of their games in the last 20 minutes, so which one is more important this week, the starter or the finisher?” Asked why he had opted to give Moon his first international start against the All Blacks, Jones was frustrated to have to repeat his mantra. “Again guys. One is starting, and one finishing. Maybe I can’t talk English. Why don’t you understand? We start one guy and finish one… [Read full story]
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