Jones, yes. But the main problem is Spencer, Luatua, Yeandle, Lewies, Ludlow, Liebenburg, Rogerson, Welch and Ross.
The only club captains in the national set up are Farrell and Ludlam only one of which is a regular starter.
Captaincy / leadership is v important. Just like any other skill you have a natural amount of ability but you'll only maximise that talent by repetition, experience and learning from mistakes at club level. Fair play to Jones - he recognised this in Hartley (who wasn't educated at an English public school….), but there have been precious few candidates since.
Warning: this post is very tangential but its a topic I'm very interested in!
Nice to see that written so clearly, it was something I was thinking about since the same topic was mentioned last week.
I've heard that Cullen and Lancaster in Leinster are obsessed with leadership and treat it like a core skill same as passing or tackling that can be improved across the squad. They have the players do leadership tests multiple times a year. Luke McGrath is so highly rated within the squad in this regard to the point that he'll be a one club man without ever being an established international, which is more or less unheard of these days.
It's such a huge challenge for Borthwick though, without any influence over the English clubs he has to develop leaders from the limited weeks he has with the squad each year. That coupled with a lack of obvious natural leaders might make it his toughest task on a long list of tough tasks currently.
It's interesting that you mention Hartley not being privately educated, obviously Genge was the same and I think Farrell only went to a fee paying school for his senior years? I think guys who break the mould like this tend to naturally be good leaders but it also speaks to the total lack of decelopment with other players who should be starting to take an elevated position. Itoje, Steward and, before getting dropped, Smith all come to mind - Itoje seems to have gone backwards as a leader and the other two still act like young lads only breaking out, they're both approaching 20 caps.
As a comparison here Sexton, POM, Ringrose, Beirne, Keenan, Ryan and Henderson are all part of the Irish leadership group and privately educated along with Furlong and Earls who weren't. There's a few on that list who I wouldn't have down as natural leaders at all and it's all down to development and encouragement.
Not much point to this post other than the English set up being a bit naive to the importance of leaders under Jones, and that players who more or less have a spot in the 23 nailed down it should be an extra curricular area of focus for them to develop their games further.
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