NEWS: ENGLAND HEAD COACH EDDIE JONES IS KEEPING HIS PROMISE TO HIS FORMER TEAM, THE STORMERS, BY OFFERING HIS EXPERTISE TO COACH ROBBIE FLECK. WARREN FORTUNE REPORTS.
Jones was in charge of the Stormers for only a couple of weeks before he abandoned the Cape franchise for a lucrative offer from the Rugby Football Union to coach England.
Although he is currently preparing England for their Six Nations campaign, Jones has has made himself available to assist Fleck informally.
"He actually, through his agent, sent me a message the other day to say that he is available at any stage," said Fleck who was speaking to reporters at the Western Province High Performance Centre in Bellville.
"I got his details. Obviously he is pretty hectic at the moment, but he is available at any stage for me to give him a shout. I think that is fantastic. He said it when he left here so he has backed up on his word. I am really grateful for that. I certainly will be sending him some footage and giving him an update of where we are."
Fleck said he had already learnt a lot from Jones' during the Australian's short stay in Cape Town in November last year.
"We had all this knowledge and ways we wanted to play and he just simplified things," said Fleck.
"At the end of the day his big message was that rugby has not changed much over the years and the fundamentals of rugby are still the same.
"It's just having the confidence to go forward and do it. He just simplified all this info and that is probably the biggest thing I have learnt from him.
"I think he sparked that inside of us and we would like to continue with that. But in saying that - he was only here for a short time. He initiated that process and we following on with it."
Fleck will be hoping this simple approach to rugby will help assist in the development of some of the younger players in his squad.
"Our philosophy here is that we don't want to complicate things too much, especially because of the young group of players.
"We really want to make this transition into Super Rugby a smoother process by simplifying our game plan and really focussing on the on the core fundamentals of what this game is about.
"Breakdowns are massively important, set piece ball and getting the basics right of handling and kicking. We don't want to cloud them. We want to simplify it for everybody here," Fleck added.
By Warren Fortune
@FortuneWarren
@rugby365com
