Joe El-Abd has promised evolution rather than revolution after taking over from Felix Jones as defence coach – but he revealed England will not be using the “B-word” on his watch.
Steve Borthwick turned to El-Abd – who he has known for 26 years – after a summer of turmoil for England after the departures of Jones, Aled Walters and Tom Tombleson from the backroom staff. El-Abd stressed the importance of “loyalty” and “commitment” after his first outing at a mini-training camp this week but does not intend to rip up Jones’s blitz defence strategy, which has shown such promise in recent matches.
Jones remains on the England payroll but is not in camp – instead working remotely – but while El-Abd admitted the significance of stability, he cited how Sir Alex Ferguson would regularly refresh his assistant coaches and believes that change can be a good thing.
El-Abd, who will continue to juggle duties as Oyonnax director of rugby with his England role until the end of the season, also revealed that Borthwick felt the need to speak to the squad about their relationship – and it is clear the head coach could do with a friend at present. Jones’s resignation was a sucker punch, so soon after Walters jumped ship to Ireland.
Compounding matters, he has seen the Premiership clubs block his attempts to recruit Phil Morrow to head up the strength and conditioning department – a role that takes on greater significance after the beginning of the new Professional Game Partnership – while it is not ideal that neither El-Abd nor Kevin Sinfield are on the coaching staff full-time.
“I think coaching stability is important,” El-Abd said. “I think that helps. I think the coaching cohesion is even more important, because then if we’re all on the same page, we can question each other hard. What do we do well, what do we not do well?
“I’m just going to use Alex Ferguson as an example. Alex Ferguson stayed for a long time, pretty successful. He didn’t always have the same coaches. It’s quite rare that they lasted for more than three or four years. But he stayed, and he knew he had the identity of Manchester United, and I think that’s the most important. So if we can create that cohesion together as a coaching group, I think that’s only positive to help the players get better, and that’s our job.
“We’re a team that loves getting off the line, and getting off the line is ‘blitz’. You call it whatever you want to do. It’s not the terminology we use, but we want to put the ‘adversaire’, we want to put the opposition under pressure. That’s not going to change. The DNA of England rugby is being tough, getting off the line, being a tough forward unit. We’re going to take what’s been really good, and there’s been lots really good over the last couple of years, and we’re going to reinforce that.”
El-Abd added: “We will take what is working and we will see where we can improve it. If you go into a business, if you go into anything and you start from scratch you are losing so much cohesion from the past. Evolving is potentially a good word.”
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El-Abd will be with England full-time during the November Test window and will travel with the squad to Girona for a training camp later this month but will return to Oyonnax before the Six Nations starts. “Am I good at compartmentalising? We’re going to find out,” he said. “I’ve juggled enough things in my lifetime to know that can work.”
Meanwhile, in positive news for England, Tom Curry is considered fit for Sale’s clash with Newcastle on Friday. The 26-year-old, who underwent lengthy hip surgery last season, has not featured for the Sharks since sustaining a head injury in the opening round of the season and is absent from the England training camp. He and brother Ben are available for selection against the Falcons, however.