Confidence of Jones' new-look squad can fuel ambition

International rugby, as Danny Cipriani reflected last week, has become a war of attrition and territory, a physical grind that repudiates risk and makes for dull viewing. All that threatens to be unpredictable about the looming Six Nations is whether it will go ahead in its entirety, with the French government concerned about exposing its citizens to the Covid-19 variant that has boosted transmission rates in the UK and Ireland.