Slammed! But Eddie sees team improving
EDDIE Jones tried his best to shrug off the mounting pressure on his shoulders after England slumped to another despairing defeat and their worst Six Nations finish for 12 years.
As one leading bookmaker even felt moved to cut his odds to still be in charge for next year’s tournament, the Australian stood defiant after having his ‘scummy’ Irish jibe rammed down his throat as Ireland celebrated just a third ever Grand Slam with a 24-15 victory at Twickenham.
It was England’s third successive defeat in the tournament and they will fly to South Africa this summer with morale and confidence lower than at any stage since the Aussie took charge.
The magnificent winning run of 24 out of 25 games is becoming a fading memory, and Jones is now just 6-1 to leave his post by next February.
Yet he claimed his team will be “a lot better” for this Six Nations failure.
He said: “These things test your resolve and this certainly does. Every champion team I’ve had has had runs like this. We are moving forward – even if right now it’s hard to see.
“As disappointing as it is, it’s part of the process of being a better team. We’ve learned a lot about our-
selves during this tournament. It’s been an enormously beneficial tournament. We want to be where we want to be by the World Cup. I’ve never compared ourselves to the All Blacks. We are still chasing them.
“You go through these little runs but the only way to get out of it is to stick to the processes and work hard. It’s quite natural for a team to go through this. Sometimes you get over them quickly, sometimes it takes a little longer.
“There was plenty of effort and the boys stuck at it but they had too big a lead. We gave them too many penalties. We weren’t good enough and Ireland are worthy Grand Slam champions.
“We had to change the team and sometimes that hurts. We need to get a greater depth to our squad who can play Test rugby.”
The TMO was involved in close calls for each of Ireland’s tries from Garry Ringrose, CJ Stander and Jacob Stockdale. But Jones refused to bemoan possible knock-ons or forward passes for his side’s loss.
Ireland’s victory keeps them ahead of England in the rankings and leaves Jones’ men just ahead of Australia.
Wing Elliot Daly’s two tries were not enough for England and the Wasps man admitted: “Our discipline probably let us down a little bit in that second half. It’s something we are going to have to look at and obviously we aren’t getting together until the summer now but we need to review and make sure we’re going in the right direction.
“It’s our biggest learning curve. We’ve had a lot of good results and we’ve had three results that have not gone our way and it’s how we bounce back from that.
“I’m taking that as a positive – how we can review these three games and improve as a team. Obviously you’re going to lose games but it’s how you bounce back. The next time we run out together we want to put in a good performance.
“South Africa is a way off at the moment but it’s in our minds because we want to get back in an England shirt and win. Hopefully we can put right the wrongs and put in a good performance out there.”