Frustrated Jones refuses to blame referee after heavy defeat
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Eddie Jones hinted strongly at his frustration with Pascal Gauzere but refused to condemn the French referee as England were dismantled 4024 by Wales.
The Guinness Six Nations champions saw their title defence reduced to rubble at the PrincipalityStadiumasWayne Pivac’s Grand Slam challengers lifted the Triple Crown afteramassingtheirhighestTest scoreagainsttheirfiercerivals.
But the ultimately-emphatic victory was shrouded in controversy after Gauzere awarded two controversial tries inside the opening 30 minutes, the first of which former England captain and boss Martin Johnson described as “absolutely appalling”.
While acknowledging that Wales were “worthy winners” as his own team’s kamikaze discipline yielded 14 penalties, Jones made it clear that by awarding dubious tries to Josh Adams and Liam Williams, Gauzere had made two crucial interventions.
“They’re huge decisions. We can’t debate it, we are not allowed to debate it. All I will end up with is a fine and that won’thelpanyone,”saidJones.
“The dog won’t be able to eat its food, wife won’t be able to eat, so I can’t say anything.”
Whenaskedifthedecisions changed the game, Jones replied: “Well, they get points maybe they don’t deserve and wehavetofighttogetbackinto the game.
“It makes it difficult and you have to be good enough to overcome it, they were worthy winners,butwehavetobegood enough to overcome those, as unusual as they might be.
“There were times we gave away penalties we shouldn’t have, it was just from the effort and sometimes you get in situations where emotionally you strugglebecauseofthecircumstances and you try too hard. That happens.
“Whenever you get beaten andbetteredbyapenalty,then disciplineisanissue.Butthere were bigger issues in the game than that, and I will let you discuss them. Wales worthy winners. We take full responsibility and don’t blame the referee. But sometimes there are circumstances that happen that are difficult to handle and weren’t good enough to handle them. I want my dog to eat food, so I am not going to say anything.”
England ironically played their best rugby of the tournament with a number of underperforming stars including Owen Farrell and Billy Vunipola stepping up, but having foughtbackwithtriesfromAnthony Watson and Ben Youngs to level 24-24, their discipline imploded once more.
*Ireland captain Johnny Sexton admits Saturday’s crushingvictoryoverItalydoes not mean “everything is fixed”.
AndyFarrell’smenbounced back from losses to Wales and France by running in six tries during a 48-10 bonus-point success in Rome to record an overdue first win of the Guinness Six Nations.
Fly-halfSextonaddedallsix conversions and two penalties on his return from a head injury to help ease mounting pressure on head coach Farrell.
“Each game has been different and I suppose (Saturday) was an accumulation and everything coming together a little bit,” he said.
“But it doesn’t mean everything is fixed now; we’ve got to keep improving and obviously a massive test ahead going to Murrayfield, it’s always an incrediblytoughgame.Andthen asix-dayturnaroundgoinginto England, so it’s still all to do. If wegetacoupleofresultsinour last couple of games, it will be an OK championship, it will be what might have been, but we want to finish on a high.”