LE CRUNCHED
We forgot how to play, admits Eddie after humiliating defeat
EddiE JonEs admitted England ‘forgot how to play’ during their six nations loss to France yesterday but vowed not to rip up his team.
Having promised a ‘brutal’ display, the England coach was forced to eat his words as Les Bleus powered to a 24-0 lead before running out 24-17 winners.
it was the first time England had failed to score a point before the break since 1988 but they salvaged some pride with a late fightback.
Centre Manu Tuilagi suffered a groin injury but Jones said he will keep faith with his players for saturday’s trip to scotland.
He said: ‘ That was a game that could’ve been quite ugly for us. There’s a bit of a renaissance in French rugby. The crowd was going nuts, they got a bit of a roll on, but the response of our players in the second half was absolutely outstanding. it’s like
we forgot how to play rugby in the first half. We were slow out of the blocks, we were sorry for ourselves and we were out of kilter. We let the situation get to us. We didn’t match their intensity early on. Why? We’d all like to know. If we knew, we’d never lose a game. ‘We’re unfortunately going to Scotland with an “L” next to our name, instead of the “W” we wanted. Nothing else changes. We’re going there to play an opposition we know are going to be up for the game, we’re going to prepare as well as we can and nothing else changes.’ Jones came under heavy fire for his pre-match comments after calling for legalised violence against a young French team who showed plenty of ferocity under new assistant coach Shaun Edwards. But Les Bleus No 8 Gregory Alldritt revealed that Jones’ words fired up the opposition before they ran out at the Stade de France. ‘Of course we read it,’ said Alldritt. ‘He was saying that we couldn’t manage the brutality of the England team. But when you are a winner, a competitor, you just want to show him that you can manage that. We were clearly going to put some fighting spirit out there, some aggression, so we didn’t really care about it.’ And wing Jonny May, who scored both of England’s tries, acknowledged that France were motivated to respond to Jones’ barbs. ‘Yeah, 100 per cent,’ said the Leicester flier. ‘But brutality is a word that we use, it doesn’t necessarily mean just smashing what’s in front of you. It’s being brutal in terms of your decision-making, being brutal in terms of your accuracy, brutal in terms of your adaptability.’ England face an anxious wait over the health of Tuilagi, who has a history of injury problems. The influential centre limped off after just 16 minutes and will face tests before the trip to Murrayfield. ‘Manu tweaked his groin, we’re not sure how serious it is,’ said Jones. ‘Obviously he’s a big gainline player for us and in those conditions we definitely did miss him. But we need to be good enough to cope with that.’