EDDIE’S UP FOR
I am over the grief of losing World Cup Final ... now we must be like Liverpool if we want to win the title, says Jones
EDDIE JONES wants his England rugby team spoken of in the same breath as Jurgen Klopp’s all-conquering Liverpool.
Three months to the day since being battered by South Africa in the World Cup Final, England return to work with what has the potential to be an explosive Six Nations clash against France.
Jones says he has been through a period of “grieving” as he battles to come to terms with his second World Cup Final defeat, following Australia in 2003.
He tells how he threw his body into an exhausting week of physical exercise – taking on men and women 20 years younger at a CrossFit camp in Japan – in an attempt to flush out the hurt.
But when it comes to helping his players get over the biggest disappointment of their lives he has turned to the power of motivation.
He started by declaring that England would become “the greatest team the world of rugby has ever seen” – one that would “stop the nation” when they played.
And last night he challenged them to emulate Klopp’s World and European club champions, the runaway unbeaten leaders of the Premier League.
“Everyone wants to watch Liverpool, don’t they?” he said. “Because they play with that ferocity. They play with that desire and they never get beaten. Even when they do get beaten, they haven’t been beaten. We want people to speak about us like that.
“It’s more than just wins and losses, we want to have an effect on how the nation sees rugby.
“The number of football fans that have come up to me and said they watched England in the World Cup semi-final – when you play that sort of rugby, people want to watch you. Like Liverpool now.”
By looking forward with such purpose Jones is hoping his players don’t dwell on the past – even if they did produce one of their greatest ever performances only two games ago.
The magnitude of their Final defeat left them searching for answers but unable to identify one that adequately explains what happened. “Getting over it wasn’t a straightforward process,” Jones revealed.
“You go through a grieving period. I remember Clive Woodward saying he went and locked himself in a room for three days after 1999 and did the same after the 2005 Lions.
“I had three weeks in Japan, one of which I didn’t do any rugby at all. It’s probably the longest I’ve gone without rugby. I did CrossFit three times a day.
“My wife and I went on a