Eddie Jones believes the 2020 Guinness Six Nations is the perfect opportunity for a fresh start for England after adding two coaches to his staff.
Former England Sevens coach Simon Amor will join the team as the attack coach, while Matt Proudfoot, most recently in charge of South Africa’s forwards in their World Cup success, comes in as forwards coach.
Proudfoot’s arrival sees Steve Borthwick switch to skills coach, with John Mitchell continuing in his role as the defence coach.
And for Jones, the arrival of the pair will help England kick on from their World Cup final appearance.
He said: “The Guinness Six Nations 2020 is a fresh start for the team so that is how we have approached our coaching staff. With Neal Hatley moving to Bath we felt we needed to regenerate the forwards coaching area. Matt Proudfoot has had an outstanding coaching career to date culminating in being a World Cup-winning coach with South Africa.
“He brings great technical expertise and knowledge having coached in South Africa and Japan and having played in Scotland and South Africa. We feel he can take the forwards to another level and build on the great work Neal and Steve have done over the last four years.”
Amor, meanwhile, fills the void left by Scott Wisemantel, the Australian who had worked with England at the World Cup.
Wisemantel left his position after the tournament in Japan, and Jones was keen to see get Amor involved, having previously brought the Sevens specialist in to help the team in the build-up to the World Cup.
He added: “We have had our eyes on Simon for a while. We used him in the run up to the Rugby World Cup in some of our training camps. I have been very impressed with his dynamism, his rugby intellect and he will bring a fresh view on how we build our attack. We have done some great things under Scott Wisemantel and we will always be forever grateful for the work he did, but we are excited about Simon coming in and what he is going to bring.”
Amor had been named as coach of GB Sevens at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, and will still take up that role before joining the England XVs team full-time.
England begin their Championship campaign away to France in Paris on Sunday February 2 before a Calcutta Cup trip to Edinburgh in Round Two.
