Jones: We blew our chances to win it
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ENGLAND boss Eddie Jones accused referee James Doleman of favouring the Wallabies after they had a man sent off as his side crashed to defeat here yesterday.
Jones admitted England blew their chance of beating Australia but says they didn’t get any favours from the referee.
England hardly fired a shot for the first 79 minutes of their 30-28 defeat until Henry Arundell and Jack van Poortvliet scored late tries.
Australia were down to 14 men for 46 minutes after Darcy Swain’s red card for a ridiculous head butt on Jonny Hill after the pair spent most of the first half winding each other up.
England’s discipline went to pot as Doleman whistled them off the park but Jones claimed he was making up for Swain’s red.
The Australians also lost full-back Tom Banks to a broken arm early on and prop Allan Alaalatoa to concussion but England’s misfiring attack still could not break them down.
England led 14-9 after Ellis Genge’s second half try but they then let the Wallabies back into the game and were well beaten. But Jones is confident he can turn the England ship around in time for next week’s second Test in Brisbane and then win the series in Sydney.
Jones said: “The team gets a red card and the opposition gets evened up, because they’re nice blokes, referees. I’m not criticising the referees, I’m not using it as an excuse, that’s the reality of rugby. That always happens. You look at the history of the game, whenever you get a red card the referee evens it up. It happens, that’s normal and we’ve got to be good enough to handle it.
“I think when you play against 14 men the referee has a significant impact on the game and you’ve got to be good enough to understand what that is and we weren’t good enough to understand what that is. And we paid the price.”
But skipper Courtney Lawes added: “We can’t blame the referee. The breakdown was highly contested in that last 20 and we came out second best, we have got to make that a cleaner picture so that one is on us.
“After the first couple we worked out what he wanted and didn’t adapt well enough to a different style of refereeing to what you see you in the Prem, when you can come through late and compete.