War of words ahead of Australia-England Test
ENGLAND head coach Eddie Jones has tarnished the legacy of his achievements with his native Australia, his Wallabies counterpart Michael Cheika said this week ahead of the two sides meeting on Saturday.
Cheika believes Jones went over the top in his attempts to give England a psychological edge during their tour of Australia in June, when the tourists recorded a 3-0 series win.
Jones, who guided Australia to the 2003 World Cup final, accused Australian media of being disrespectful, but Cheika believes his former Randwick teammate needs to look at his own behaviour.
“There was a lot of vitriol about Australia, his home nation,” Cheika told reporters at a press conference in London ahead of Saturday’s clash at Twickenham.
“It’s where he coached, where the opportunities were given to him to grow up as a coach and play. Personally, if you’re look- ing to leave a legacy somewhere, you don’t want to hit back at it when you leave.”
Jones took an early prematch swipe at Australia by calling for a meeting with referee Jaco Peyper so he can raise concerns about the Wallabies’ scrummaging.
Cheika fired back at Jones by insisting that it is England rather than Australia who scrum illegally.
Cheika said Jones had to get his own house in order after prop Dan Cole was sin-binned for collapsing a scrum in England’s 27-14 win at home to Argentina last Saturday.
“I think the important thing there to note is that he’s got to be looking at his own players because they’re the ones who have a prop with a yellow card, and that same prop’s been infringing the law since his career started, probably if not all of this year,” Cheika said.
Cheika, in a thinly veiled reference to Cole’s play during England’s 3-0 series win in Australia in June, added: “It’s up to the ref whether he gets influenced by that, really, after the guy’s been boring in and falling down all of June in the series we played against them.”
The Australia coach stressed his side scrummed correctly. “We scrum square. We’ve got an Argentinian scrum coach and all we do is scrum square and try to get as much weight as possible,” he said.