What would the old Eddie Jones say about today’s Eddie Jones and England?

Remember that night in Paris? This same March week back in 2016, Eddie Jones’s England went there with the grand slam on the line. Of course they won it, beating France 31-21 thanks to fine tries from Danny Care, Dan Cole and Anthony Watson. Afterwards, James Haskell and Chris Robshaw were walking around the Stade de France in custom-made shirts with the number six-and-a-half on the back (a sly and affectionate dig at their coach after he told them they couldn’t play seven), while the Vunipola brothers belted out Backstreet Boys covers in the dressing room. It was the start of a party that stretched long into the next morning.

Looking back, it is still the happiest night the team have had since Jones took over. In that first year or so, he approached England’s rugby like a breeze blowing away fog. His ruthlessness made for a stark contrast with the muddled thinking his predecessor, Stuart Lancaster, had got bogged down in during the last year of his tenure as head coach.

Lancaster and his assistant coaches were still trying to figure out who was in their best XV after they had been knocked out of the 2015 World Cup. They were going back and forth over who should start at fly-half and in the midfield for that last, dead pool game against Uruguay.

Jones thought George Ford was his best fly-half so picked him there, he wanted Owen Farrell in his team, too, so he put him at centre. He didn’t believe Robshaw was the right man to play on the open-side so he moved him and brought back Haskell. He didn’t think Robshaw was the right man to be captain either; he wanted what he called a bit more “mongrel”, so recalled Dylan Hartley.

He had clear ideas about the team’s style of play and strategy. He wanted what he called a