Jones has Georgia on his mind

EDDIE JONES has thrown his weight behind the introduction of promotion and relegation to the Six Nations.

The tournament’s organisers meet today under pressure to open up a closed shop that thwarts the ambitions of sides such as Romania, winners of this season’s Rugby Europe Championship on points difference from Georgia, who had won the previous six editions. The England coach, right, said: “Georgia and

EXCLUSIVE

Romania have enormous potential. They have good gene pools for rugby and Georgia, in particular, has the infrastructure to push forward.

“What they should ideally do is have a proper Six Nations B division and then have a play-off game against the bottom side from division A. Wouldn’t that be exciting? Imagine playing Georgia in front of 60,000 in Tbilisi to keep your place.”

Italy have won just one of their past 20 matches in the championship and have yet to finish in the top half of the table since they were admitted in 2000. In those 18 campaigns, they have finished bottom 12 times. But Six Nations bosses have been reluctant to put the Italians’ place at risk. LONDON IRISH will be without centre Asaeli Tikoirotuma for the second leg of the Championship play-off final tonight. The Fijian has been banned for four weeks for a high tackle on Yorkshire Carnegie wing Jonah Holmes in the first leg. Irish go into the promotion decider at the Madejski Stadium with an 11-point lead.