Eddie Jones remains focused on improving England for France decider
Eddie Jones plans to ring the changes against France on Saturday, with England having already qualified for the World Cup quarter-finals, but dismissed suggestions his side would be better off losing and finishing second in their pool.
Saturday’s victory over Argentina confirmed England had reached the quarter-finals for the first time since 2011. Jones’s side ran out comfortable winners after Tomás Lavanini’s 18thminute red card and the only downside was Billy Vunipola’s twisted ankle. England are set to confirm the extent of that injury on Monday.
Victory, however, means that if England beat France this weekend they will top Pool C. That would most likely mean a quarter-final against Australia with the winner of that match on a collision course with New Zealand – who racked up the highest points score of the tournament so far against Namibia on Sunday – in the last four.
The losers, meanwhile, are expected to face Wales in the quarter-finals but would be on the opposite side of the draw to the All Blacks and could not meet them until the final. Last year, England’s footballers found themselves in a similar position before their last World Cup group match against Belgium. Gareth Southgate made nine changes to his side with England already assured of qualification and the 1-0 defeat ensured they were on the opposite side of the draw to France – the eventual winners – Brazil and the European champions, Portugal.
Jones, however, claimed that he has not even looked at permutations despite a likely meeting with his home country. Asked if England need to beat France, Jones said: “I don’t know, [I’m] not even looking at it. The only thing I know is we are playing France. I don’t know any of the permutations, I don’t know where the quarter-final is. It doesn’t concern me because all I’m concerned about is France next week.
“We are where we need to be and we haven’t played to our best yet – which is good, because we’ve got growth and that’s what this competition is about. It’s about growing, it’s about building, it’s about being right when you need to be right. It’s our next game, our most important game. We want to win every game. I think we can improve the team [against France]. That’ll be the challenge: how can we improve the team?”
Mako Vunipola made his comeback from his hamstring injury against Argentina, coming off the bench on 63 minutes and he is likely to start against France. He first suffered the injury in Saracens’ Champions Cup final victory in May but having aggravated it in the World Cup warm-up victory over Ireland last month, Vunipola thought his tournament may have been over. “I had a fear that that could be it,” he said. “I didn’t really know exactly and didn’t understand what had happened. When I had the scan and got the results back it wasn’t ideal but luckily the specialist was able to clear it up and I am just happy to be here now and get that game under my belt.
“We want to win everything we play in. Next week will be no different, so we want to have a good week’s preparation, prepare for France as best we can and then go out there and try to win the game. It would be difficult for a player to go out there and not have anything but that in their head, that’s how injuries happen and you start overthinking things.”
George Ford, who again shone at fly-half against Argentina, was similarly dismissive of the suggestion England should aim to finish second in their pool. “We can’t fall into that trap one bit. We’ve got to take each game as it comes and that’s what we’ve done so far,” he said. “Three games down, we just go for the next one now which is France, who are challenging opponents. I think to win this [tournament] you’ve got to win every single game, so it’s just the next one for us.”
Despite already securing England’s qualification, Jones will not be able
to attend the funeral of his friend and former Randwick club mentor Jeff Sayle in Australia this week. Jones had hoped to fly back to attend the funeral on Friday before returning for Saturday’s match against France in Yokohama but will now be staying in Japan. It is understood Jones has spoken with the former Australia international Glen Ella, who served as England’s backs coach in 2016 and 2017, who will pass on his condolences.