PUT YOUR SHIRT ON ENGLAND
Trouble and strife for Jones as he learns team will face Japan
EDDIE JONES joked that his wife would need a half- and- half shirt after England drew Japan in the 2023 Rugby World Cup.
A year after losing the final to South Africa, England were handed as favourable a pool schedule for the tournament in France as they could possibly have hoped for.
Jones’ team avoided the host nation as well as Australia, Ireland and Scotland. Instead they will face Argentina and his former team Japan, the darlings of the past two tournaments.
“I had this strong gut feeling that we were going to get Japan and I wasn’t disappointed,” he said. “I think my wife Hiroko has already bought a halfEnglish, half- Japanese shirt!
“I will do some work on her over the next two years to make sure she has got the right shirt on.”
England, the only northern hemisphere country to win the World Cup, are third favourites behind threetime winners New Zealand and
France. With two to advance from each of the four pools, they could have fared a lot worse than a group which also contains yet- to- be- known qualifiers from Oceania and the Americas.
Scotland and Ireland were pooled with the world champion Springboks while Wales, not for the first time, must get past Australia and Fiji.
England fans should bear in mind that Argentina toppled the All Blacks last month, while Japan beat Ireland and Scotland last year. Nonetheless, they will expect a quarter- final against either Wales or Australia.
In the other half of the draw France and New Zealand, paired together in Pool A, will vie to avoid a quarter- final with South Africa.
Speaking from Japan, where he is spending Christmas,
Jones admitted that England are going
through a “rebuilding phase”. Asked to mark their autumn campaign out of 10 he replied: “10 – because we won two trophies.”
He added: “Everyone can criticise the way we played but at the end of the day, that’s the objective. The only currency we have is winning.”
Jones did, however, concede for the first time that he was not satisfied with the limited attacking game that secured England the Six Nations and Autumn Nations Cup.
He admitted “our attack lacked precision – the passing precision is just not there” and blamed it on the lack of a pre- season. “We are asking our rugby players to play back- to- back seasons with no pre- season so the chance for them to hone those fine skills hasn’t been there,” he said.
“We’ve given three weeks of our preparation away this year to the clubs to make sure the players get rest. I’m not trying to make excuses. That’s the reality of it.”