I just take each game as it is with EJ these days, who knows WTF is going to happen in the next one
Smash the All Blacks? We must be half decent...go on massive run of terrible form
Oh look, we just beat the Boks with an injury riddled side...oh and now we're back to dross again
Oh yes, I don't understand Eddie - I THINK I can see some reason in the madness, but I'm really not confident in it.
His target is to win the RWC - to do that, you need to beat both NZ and SA - and there's basically no gameplan that is well suited to one, whilst not playing into the hands of the other. Which means you need variety of game styles - which he learned to his cost in 2019 (though I still say that 60 minutes of Sinckler and it's a completely different game).
Last cycle, he was working on confidence, then physical and mental toughness - and was brutal about it; with a gameplan to beat NZ and hope it'd be good enough against SA. It wasn't.
This cycle, it seems to be that he's doing a lot of experimenting - new players all over the place (often feeling too many, and not letting an individual get used to international rugby, and with the sad exception of Youngs and Farrell, and understandable exceptions of Sinckler, Itoje and Curry) and the game plan - as much as we viewers can tell, is changed for each window.
Now I give Eddie more credit than most - I think he's got a brain that never stops working, that he's always got a cunning plan, and that he plays the long game with his eyes firmly on the RWC. Others thing he's a rambling idiot barely (if at all) short of drooling on his shirt collar and would be better off selecting teams by throwing darts at a board.
I think he's shown glimpses of what he wants the team to do in flashes here and there - in defence and attack; but wants the team as a whole to be comfortable with many different options - so he flits about, he hides his hand; and IMO he's got a plan for NZ and a plan for SA, and I think he believes we can beat anyone else without really needing a plan. The plans may not work, I don't claim enough knowledge to put my finger on what they are, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if we come a cropper by taking our eyes off a team he believes we can beat without showing our hand.
I also think he's flitting too much, I think that individuals risk ending up under-cooked by the time we land in France, I think it's a high-risk stategy. But I also think that anyone claiming that Eddie doesn't know what he's doing, is behind the times, or doesn't have a plan - is being blinded by dislike.
