Wales facing the weight of expectation – Jones
ENGLAND boss Eddie Jones has warned expectation will be high on Wales as they head into the Six Nations as defending champions.
Wales are without more than 900 caps’ worth of experience and are largely being written off as the tournament kicks off with their clash in Ireland on Saturday.
However, Jones insists the pressure will still be there as Wayne Pivac experiences the pressures of being a defending champion for the first time.
Jones knows about that with England and warned: “The expectation is higher as the champion. The media, the external expectation is higher.
“In a country like Wales, where rugby is the number one sport, when you’re the champion team, everyone expects you to keep winning.
“Wayne’s an experienced coach, he’ll know how to handle it and he’s got some good experienced players.
“Dan Biggar is your captain, he’s been on two Lions tours and he’s very experienced. They’ll know how to handle that.
“But we know this is going to be a tough tournament. Just look at the quality of the teams in it.”
Meanwhile, former Ireland star Rob Kearney has dismissed Wales’ title prospects this time out and warned they will head home from Dublin ‘comfortably’ defeated in Saturday’s tournament opener.
Kearney, capped almost 100 times by Ireland and with three Lions Tests to his name, insists Wales aren’t the force they were.
And he reckons it’s a straight shootout between France and the Irish for the Six Nations this year.
“The two teams are playing so well at the moment and are unlikely to have too many slip-ups,” said the former full-back in the Irish Examiner.
As Wales head to Dublin to begin the defence of their title, Kearney claimed they are not “the force that they were over the last number of years.”
He stated: “I’d expect a relatively comfortable win for Ireland in that first game and that first game is always really important because it can just springboard your confidence into the rest of the tournament.”
Predicting a France versus Ireland title shootout, he explained Scotland “are always running high a little bit in terms of what they can achieve”, England are a side in transition and Wales simply aren’t as powerful any more.