A Lions coach needs to show diplomacy and respect – can Jones do that?

FLY-HALF George Ford has been dropped for tomorrow’s crunch Six Nations meeting with Grand Slamchasing Ireland as England make sweeping changes.

Owen Farrell starts at fly-half, with Ben Te’o at inside-centre, while hooker Dylan Hartley returns to lead the side.

Scrum-half Danny Care, lock Joe Launchbury and prop Dan Cole also lose their places in the starting XV. Richard Wigglesworth, George Kruis and Kyle Sinckler all start as England look to recover from backto-back defeats.

In addition to the players dropped, England also make two injury-enforced changes.

James Haskell returns on the open-side flank, with Chris Robshaw switching to blind-side in place of the injured Courtney Lawes and Sam Simmonds coming back in at number eight to replace the injured Nathan Hughes.

Exeter’s Don Armand is on the bench and is set to win his second cap. Jonathan Joseph regains his place at outside centre, while the back three is unchanged from the defeat in Paris.

Elliot Daly has been declared fit to start after a foot problem, with Anthony Watson continuing at fullback and Mike Brown among the replacements.

Cole, Launchbury, Care and Ford are all also on the bench – along with Jamie George, who makes way for fit-again captain Hartley – as England look to stop Ireland winning their third Grand Slam.

Meanwhile, Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt has made one change to his starting XV as his side seek a first Grand Slam title in nine years.

Ulster lock Iain Henderson replaces Devin Toner in the second row with the remainder of the matchday 23 unchanged. IT seems safe to assume that Eddie Jones has blown his chances of becoming the next chairman of the Wales Tourist Board.

After all, ‘come and visit Wales, that s**t little place,’ doesn’t have an entirely alluring ring.

And, while he’s about it, any hopes the Australian had of landing a similar promotional role in Ireland can also probably be forgotten about, given that eight months ago he regaled our Celtic cousins as “scummy Irish”.

What was England’s head coach thinking of when he featured at a sponsors’ talk in July 2017 and launched into remarks that are toxic by any standard?

He referred to Wales as a “s**t little place” and spoke about how disappointed he was by a recent defeat by the “scummy Irish”.

Maybe his tongue was in cheek at the time.

But if he was trying to be funny, it really wasn’t comedy’s finest hour.

Indeed, many will view the comments as extraordinarily offensive and feel they call into question Jones’ suitability to lead the British and Irish Lions when they tour South Africa in 2021.

For a Lions coach must not just know a lot about rugby, as Jones undoubtedly does.

He must also have respect for different cultures and have an understanding of the unique dynamic that sees players of different nationalities come together in a short space of time to form one team. He must be a diplomat, a supreme man-manager, be inclusive and have rare social skills. Above all, he must possess the ability to see the player rather than the country. Lions bosses must now be wondering how many of those boxes Eddie Jones ticks. Carwyn James, the prince of coaches, showed the way when he led the Lions in New Zealand in 1971. He may have been a Welsh nationalist who stood for Plaid Cymru in the 1970 General Election, but James understood that the Lions couldn’t be successful unless ancient national rivalries were put to one side. His speech when the squad gathered for the first time 47 years ago still resonates: “Be your own men,” he told the players. “Express yourselves, not as you would at the office, but as you would at home.

“I don’t want Irishmen to pretend to be English, or Englishmen to be Celts, or Scotsmen to be anything less than Scots. You each have an ultimate quality to give to the team and you must know that you are able to express yourself in your own special, unique