NOW FOR THE SLAM!
Joseph plunders hat-trick as England rewrite the record books and Jones challenges his team to join the greats
EDDIE JONES challenged his players to achieve greatness after crushing Scotland 61-21 to equal the world record of 18 straight wins and move to within one victory of an historic back-to-back Grand Slam.
England produced a sensational performance to run in seven tries at Twickenham yesterday and claim the Six Nations title with a game to spare.
They will travel to Dublin to face Ireland in the final game of the championship next Saturday knowing victory would see them claim a new world record of 19 straight wins while also becoming only the sixth team in history to claim back-to-back Grand Slams.
Jones said: ‘Back-to-back Grand Slams for the players will mean they achieve greatness and how many times in your life do you get the chance to be great? That is the opportunity they’ve got, so it’s exciting.
‘They’re in the dressing room talking about it, they want to do it.
‘It has put us in a very good position and we can go to Ireland and win the Grand Slam and no team in the history of the Six Nations [since 2000] has won backto-back Slams.
‘It has only been won four or five times in Four and Five Nations history and it is a fantastic opportunity, and this game has given us that.’
Ireland’s defeat by Wales on Friday night ended their hopes and Jones feels Joe Schmidt’s men will have nothing to lose on St Patrick’s Day in Dublin. ‘It is a different contest,’ added Jones.
‘Ireland psychologically are in a very strong position. They’re out of the tournament, they love spoiling parties and the party they would love to spoil most is the England party.
‘They have an enormous psychological advantage. We’re vulnerable because we’ve won — we’re champions of the Six Nations. We’re vulnerable and we’re going to have to work hard to get ourselves right for the game. And we will work hard and we will be right.’
Scotland skipper John Barclay admitted his side were ‘useless’.
‘We’re trying to move away from the tag of plucky losers but that wasn’t even that,’ he said. ‘We were useless.’