We’re off to a party in Dublin says Eddie
EDDIE Jones vowed not to let the Irish “spoil the party” as he licked his lips at the prospects of a potential world record, double Grand Slam celebration in Dublin.
The confident England head coach urged his players to cross the Irish Sea at the end of this week and “achieve greatness” after crushing the Scots into submission at Twickenham.
Aussie Jones beamed like a Cheshire Cat after the 62-21 victory as Prince Harry presented Dylan Hartley with the Calcutta Cup, putting England on the verge of creating more rugby history.
Bath centre Jonathan Joseph was the star performer as a magnificent seven-try, bonus-point smashing of Scotland saw England retain their Six Nations title and equal New Zealand’s 18-match winning sequence.
Joe Schmidt’s men in green now stand in the way of Jones and his players scaling new heights.
Jones roared: “Ireland have an enormous amount of psychological advantage. We are vulnerable having won the Six Nations so have to get it right.
“The Irish love to spoil parties in Dublin. They would love to spoil an England party over there next weekend. We have to make sure they don’t spoil anything.
“We will have a couple of
drinks tonight and then gather to focus on Ireland.”
Jones added: “We were ruthless and behaved like the number one team in the world.
“It was important we started well and finished the job off. We did that.
“Only five teams in the history of the competition have won back-to-back Grand Slams. We are in a good position to do that now.
“We’ve been ready to play well for a long time. Today we had a chance to play rugby and the guys were superb.
“We are only one year into a four-year project and we are going to get better and better. I think we have a power advantage over most teams in this world.”
Jones said of Joseph: “JJ has bouncing feet. He has great pace and running flair, and he showed all those attributes today.”
Joseph, named man of the match, said: “We wanted to make a fast start and put some early points on the board. It went perfectly to plan and the big guys set the platform for us for a big win. Now Dublin will be a huge challenge for us and we are all really looking forward to going over there.
“We back ourselves to the hilt. We’ve gone to Australia, gone here and there and put in some performances
“Losing in Dublin is not something that will come into out head.
“Ireland is the next hurdle for us – we want to win all our games. That is the next team and we are going to give it our all.
Joseph walked off with the match ball and said: “I will probably give the ball to my dad and mum andmy brothers will probably end up playing with it.
“This was one of my best days in an England jersey and I hope there are many more to come.”
Scotland captain John Barclay said: “We didn’t show up today. We got off to a poor start and things didn’t get much better. England are arguably the best team in the world right now.”
Scotland head coach Vern Cotter admitted: “We couldn’t get much of a grip on the game.”