Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
FULL STEAM AHEAD
Jones delights in blend of old and new stars but warns ‘keep it going’
EDDIE JONES has warned his England stars to not even think about taking their foot off the pedal ahead of the Six Nations.
Jones released the players back to their clubs after a debrief with the sports psychologist and one-on-one reviews in which he himself spelt out the need to keep pushing on.
The Australian is determined the momentum of an unbeaten autumn, capped by victory over world champions South Africa, is not lost over the next two months.
England slumped to their worst ever Six Nations finish last season and he will not rest before burying that memory beneath a titlewinning campaign.
Jones (right) said: “The message we have given is that we want them to go back and play their trademark game for their clubs, because good habits are very important to keep. We want the players to play with the same effort and the same emotional control for their clubs as they did for us.
“If they have the opportunity to come back in for the Six Nations, we want them to be in an even better position than they are now.”
England finished fifth in the Six Nations last season, losing to Scotland, Wales and Ireland in the same championship for the first time since 1976.
Jones has not fallen into the trap of now thinking wins over two of the world’s top-three ranked sides makes England the finished article. He acknowledged that “mental
INTERNATIONAL RESULTS IN AUTUMN
fatigue” likely impacted on the Springboks, Australia and New Zealand, due to their time spent in bubbles many miles from home.
Jones said: “The evolution of the side is to become more consistent in the application of our skills. “We are not strong enough in the set-piece to beat a side like South Africa consistently and that is going to take a lot of work to get our scrum and our maul particularly to the level we want it to be.” There
is little a coach likes more than to emerge from a win with work-ons and Jones headed to France last night, to scout a World Cup base for England, thrilled at how new and old in his squad have blended.
“We got these young guys together in the summer not knowing how they would go,” he said referring to Freddie Steward, Marcus Smith, Bevan Rodd and Jamie Blamire.
“There was this chemistry in that group and it just took off. We then put them with a few of the established players and they seemed to gel.”