Jones: Farrell turned it round

EDDIE JONES revealed he spared his side an earbashing at the break in yesterday’s win despite their dismal first half performance.

The 58-year-old claims he has mellowed with age and did not deliver a rocket to his team even though they trailed 15-10 at the interval.

Jones claims he just reinforced some messages but he did make a big tactical call by bringing on Owen Farrell for the second half which England won 25-0 and by the end he had several more first choicers after making 11 changes from the All Blacks game.

Jones said: “It is different these days. Once you get past 55 you tone it down. We just talked about the fact we needed more effort and needed to get stuck in. We weren’t getting stuck in and we got stuck in in the second half. It is really pleasing for us and our players will learn a lot from that.

“The plan changes. I don’t think there is a plan. We just made changes as we saw fit. We needed to change the impetus of the game a little bit. Owen is obviously a forceful character and he came on and did a good job for us.

“We wanted a game that would test us and we put out a different team and different combinations to see how players were combining in different positions.

“We were tested and probably got seduced by the game in the first couple of minutes, scoring an easy try.

“The players subconsciously think it is going to be easy and we knocked off a bit in a our effort and attitude which is disappointing.

“It was about getting our effort and attitude better and a couple of technical things.

“If you looked at the score line then it was 15-10 and they had 80 per cent of possession, 65 per cent of territory and eight pens to one and you can’t have more than that and be five points ahead.

“We were actually in a pretty good position and we just needed to find the right way to play in the second half.”

“We played like England in the second half and I can only recall Japan being in our 22 once.”