Bullish Jones convinced England are going to spoil the Welsh party

● Table-toppers will mix aggression with calm heads against a home side ‘full of emotions’

After resounding wins over Ireland and France which have put resurgent England top of the Six Nations table, Eddie Jones stuck to tinkering round the edges with his selection to face Wales tomorrow, and brashly predicted his side would “spoil the party” in Cardiff.

Ben Moon and Jack Nowell replaced the injured Mako Vunipola and Chris Ashton at loosehead prop and right wing respectively as two changes from the starting team who hammered France 44-8 at Twickenham last time out, with props Ellis Genge and Harry Williams, flanker Brad Shields and wing Joe Cokanasiga brought into the replacements.

Jones has confused observers by making claims of the Welsh talking themselves up, which no one has been able to substantiate. But on England’s approach to the meeting of the two unbeaten teams in this season’s Six Nations, the Aussie could not have been clearer, and it includes the strongscrummaging Moon as the run-on loosehead, with the more explosive carrier Genge to be unleashed later.

“It’s one of those games where we want to have plenty of aggression and toughness but we need calm heads,” Jones said.

“They [Wales] are going to be full of emotions. They’ve been saying they’re ready to rip off heads and the senior players

0 England coach Eddie Jones has made unsubstantiated claims that Wales have been talking themselves up ahead of the Cardiff clash.

are holding them back. They watched a play about the old centre with a beard – Ray Gravell. I remember watching him play, he was a really good player.

“So they are full of emotions and they’ll bring that to the field and we know Wales teams at home want to come out hard. Our job is to be like that heavyweight boxer that comes in there, knows exactly what he’s going to do, waits for the opportunity for the knockout and then takes it.”

There was the hint of an edge over newspaper reports linking Wales’s head coach Warren Gatland with taking over England when Jones leaves, which could be as soon as after this year’s World Cup. “It’s Warren’s last game [against England in the Six Nations] as

Wales coach before he takes over somewhere else,” said Jones. “So it’s a big week for them, a lot of expectation. That can either be wind in your sails or a ball and chain.

“Wales is a proud rugby country, they have a team they are so proud of, a coach they are so proud of, we are excited to be part of that and we are going to spoil the party.”

Jones has a win-loss record of 4-0 in matches against Gatland, all of them with England and Wales respectively since Jones took the job at the start of 2016. But Jones has preferred to concentrate publicly on Wales’s current run of a national record-equalling 11 wins. The England boss has archly referred on several occasions to claims this might be the best Wales side

ever, although no such assertion has come from any Welsh player or coach.

Jones said: “Wales have beaten some good teams – Australia and South Africa [in the autumn] and France a few weeks ago. They have changed their game a bit, they went away from ‘Wazzaball’ and started to pass a lot more. Now they’ve come back to a middle ground where they have a balance between their running and kicking and gainline attack and it’s a good balance that’s worked well for them.

“We’re not saying we’re underdogs. We want to be calm but at the same time tough and have a real steel about us. That’s what I want to see. And I know we’re going to get it. I can see it in the players’ eyes.”