England add Simon Amor and Matt Proudfoot as assistant coaches
Simon Amor has been named the attack coach
©PA
England have strengthened their backroom staff with the inclusion of Simon Amor and Matt Proudfoot ahead of the upcoming Six Nations tournament.
The duo will join John Mitchell and Steve Borthwick as Eddie Jones has filled up the vacant coaching positions with scrum coach Neal Hatley and attack coach Scott Wisemantel already exiting from their roles.
Borthwick, who is also linked with return to club rugby at the end of the Six Nations tournament has been shifted to skills coach with Proudfoot taking his role as forwards coach.
Former Scotland international Proudfoot has worked with Western Province, Stormers and Kobelco Steelers and joined the Springboks as an assistant coach in 2016 and most recently helped South Africa to a World Cup title win in Japan last year.
"England is probably the best team in world rugby to coach. Having coached against them you get to respect their identity so to get the opportunity to be part of that is a huge honour and privilege," he said in a statement released by the RFU.
"I am really grateful to Eddie, the rest of the coaching staff and the RFU to be given this chance. It is a decision I take with great humility and responsibility and know there is a huge legacy to live up to.
"I look forward to taking that challenge on and doing England proud."
Amor will join the red rose team as an attack coach after exiting from his role as head of the England Sevens men's and women's programme. He was also the in charge of GB Sevens when they won the silver medal during the Rio Olympics in 2016.
The 40-year-old will also be relieved from his duty after the Six Nations tournament as he will help GB and England Sevens until after 2020 Olympics in Tokyo before rejoining Jones' backroom staff full-time.
"I love my country and I love coaching. This opportunity to work at the highest level for my country is something I am incredibly passionate about and I am honoured to be joining Eddie's coaching team," said Amor.
"The things I am most excited about are being able to learn in this environment and having an opportunity to help improve some great players and the team.
"I'm also keen to work closely with the Premiership club coaches, keep improving and getting better myself, further developing what I've learned in my career so far."
England coach Eddie Jones is delighted to have the services of Proudfoot and Amor as they build towards the 2020 season.
“The Guinness Six Nations 2020 is a fresh start for the team so that is how we have approached our coaching staff. With Neal Hatley moving to Bath we felt we needed to regenerate the forwards coaching area.
Matt Proudfoot has had an outstanding coaching career to date culminating in being a World Cup winning coach with South Africa.
“He brings great technical expertise and knowledge having coached in South Africa and Japan and having played in Scotland and South Africa. We feel he can take the forwards to another level and build on the great work Neal and Steve have done over the last four years.
"We have had our eyes on Simon for a while. We used him in the run up to the Rugby World Cup in some of our training camps. I have been very impressed with his dynamism, his rugby intellect and he will bring a fresh view on how we build our attack."
