Jones delighted to see England avoid horror show
EDDIE Jones compared Wales’ threat of a comeback in England’s 24-13 victory over Wales at Parc y Scarlets to watching the horror film Psycho.
An 11-7 lead failed to reflect the visitors’ control of the first half and a hard-fought third quarter was fraught with danger as Wayne Pivac’s men threatened a comeback when successive Dan Biggar penalties reduced the deficit to 18-13.
But England powered home through the boot of Owen Farrell to secure their place in the Autumn Nations Cup final, which will be played against France in front of 2,000 fans at Twickenham next Sunday.
“At half-time it could have been a Psycho horror movie. The woman goes to the shower and you know what’s coming from behind the shower curtain,” head coach Jones said. “Wales did a few things at the end of the first half to put us off our game and then we had a choice at half-time of how would we react. Would we allow them to continue to do that or do we stick to our game? The boys showed really good tactical discipline to stick to our game. We had one little wonky period for around 10 minutes in the second half but generally we had game control so I was really pleased.”
England’s last defeat was against France at the start of the 2020 Six Nations - a competition they subsequently won - and since then they have compiled a series of solid if unspectacular wins.
Jones, who saw Henry Slade and Mako Vunipola touch down for his pre-match favourites, wants to end the year with a bang.
“We don’t feel like we’ve played our best rugby yet so it’s our last game. It’s our grand final of 2020 and we want to make sure we put on our best performance,” Jones said. “We want to make sure we put on a performance that lights up people’s eyes when they sit there and they look at the team and they want to be part of the team.”
Wales head coach Wayne Pivac struggled to mask his frustration with referee Romain Poite following a seventh defeat in the last eight Tests.
“We were probably a bit disappointed going in at half-time,” Pivac said. “The 11 points are probably ones that we would argue the toss with. Dan Biggar was tackled in the air, and a try came from that. The TMO (television match official) called in to say it was a tackle in the air, but the referee played on.
“Dan Biggar was clearly taken in the air. The TMO comes in and calls that, but he is over-ruled by the man in the middle. We then asked for him (Poite) to have a look before the conversion was taken,
but our captain was dismissed 20 metres away. That was disappointing, and the scrums also need to be tidied up. There are a lot of resets and a lot of scrum penalties being awarded, and in some cases, we think, wrongly so.”
Asked if Wales would raise issues with World Rugby, Pivac added: “We’ll certainly be doing that on this particular occasion, because I wasn’t happy with the first try of England’s.”
It was a much-improved performance by Wales but ultimately, they were unable to threaten a team currently seven places above them in the world rankings.
England prop Ellis Genge has denied headbutting Tomas Francis in Saturday’s game. Footage of
Genge’s tussle with Francis that took place in the closing stages of match has been circulated on social media. The incident was missed by referee Poite and the citing commissioner had a deadline of 24 hours after the final whistle to initiate disciplinary proceedings. Bristol-born Genge, however, has said on social media that he has no case to answer.
“Thanks for all the Twitter TMO reviews but I didn’t headbutt anyone” the Leicester prop said.
France demonstrated their strength in depth as they cruised to a 36-5 victory over Italy to set up a play-off final with England in the Autumn Nations Cup. On the night that they remembered Christophe Dominici, who died at the age of 48
this week, France looked to a new generation as a side featuring 13 changes made light work of the Italians.
The visitors did go 5-3 up when Carlo Canna ran in a 24th-minute try, but they were Italy’s only points of the night. France moved back to the top of Pool B, bound for the final on December 6.
» Ireland beat Georgia 23-10 to secure second place in Autumn Nations Cup Group A. All but three of Ireland’s points came in the first half with tries from Billy Burns and Hugo Keenan giving the hosts a lead at the break.
Georgia scored one of the tries of the tournament through Giorgi Kveseladze’s stunning first-half score.