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Eddie Jones admits Jamie George mistake but stands by George Ford call

By PA
Eddie Jones /PA

Eddie Jones admits the role his mismanagement of replacing Luke Cowan-Dickie played in England’s dramatic 20-17 defeat by Scotland.

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Cowan-Dickie was sent to the sin-bin for a deliberate knock-on that prevented Darcy Graham from scoring a probable try in a tense final quarter of the Guinness Six Nations opener at Murrayfield.

Instead of bringing on Jamie George as specialist hooker cover, Jones kept his back row intact only for the decision to backfire when it meant prop Joe Marler had to throw in at the line-out.

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Marler’s throw failed to travel five metres and from the resulting scrum England conceded a penalty which Finn Russell used to land the match-winning kick.

“We thought we could wait for a scrum because we wanted to keep the back rowers on at that stage,” Jones said.

“Scotland were moving the ball around well. We thought we needed that third back rower on. Certainly I take the blame for that.”

Jones is satisfied with his contentious decision to take off the outstanding Marcus Smith, however, amid criticism of his withdrawal of the 22-year-old playmaker.

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Smith scored all 17 of England’s points and had just finished a dynamic try and landed a penalty when he was substituted for George Ford.

Eddie Jones
Edde Joness /PA

It was a risky call to take off his increasingly-influential fly-half and England duly unravelled as a 17-10 lead was overturned first by Cowan-Dickie’s penalty try and then Russell’s penalty.

“It’s a 23-man squad. We felt George could come on and do a job for us in the last 20 minutes,” said Jones when asked to explain the substitution.

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For the third consecutive year England have opened the Six Nations with a defeat in a major setback following a successful autumn that ended with victory over world champions South Africa.

The next assignment is Sunday’s trip Italy and Jones insists the plan remains the same despite the inability to turn their dominance at Murrayfield into a win.

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“This doesn’t change anything. In the next game we’ll get as many points as we can,” he said.

“And then the next game we’ll get as many points as we can, the next game we’ll get as many points as we can and then we’re in the last game and if we’re in the hunt for the trophy, all well and good.

“If we’re not then we’ll have played some good rugby. Obviously we want to win the competition but this doesn’t change our approach to the competition.”

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J
JW 47 minutes ago
Let's be real about these All Blacks

I didn't really get the should tone from it, but maybe because I was just reading it as my own thoughts.


What I read it as was examples of how they played well enough in every game to be able to win it.


Yeah I dunno if Ben wouldn't see it that way (someone else would for sure need to point it out to him though), I'm more in the Ben not appreciating that those close losses werent one off scenarios camp. Sure you can look at dubious decisions causing them to have to play with 14 or 13 men at the death as viable reasons but even in the games they won without such difficulties they made a real struggle of it (compared to how good some of their first half play was). This kind of article where you trying to point out the 3 losses really would most likely have been wins only really makes sense/works when your other performances make those 3 games (or endings) stand out.


There might have been a sentence here and there to ensure some good comment numbers but when he's signing off the article by saying things like ..

Whilst these All Blacks aren’t blowing teams off the park like during the 2010s, they are nuggety and resourceful and don’t wilt. They are prepared to win the hard way, accumulating points by any means necessary.

and..

The other top sides in the world struggled to put them away. France and South Africa both could have well been defeated on home soil.

I don't really see it. Always making sure people are upto date with the SH standing/perspective! NZ went through some tough times with so many different perspectives and reasons why, but then it was.. amusing how.. behind everyone was once they turned a corner. More of these 'unfortunate' results returned against SA and France at the start of the RWC which made it extra tasty to catch other teams out when they did bring it. So that created some 'conscious' perspective that I just kept going and sharing re thoughts on similar predicaments of other teams, I had been really confident that Wallabies displays vs NZ were real, that the Argentines can backup their thing against Aus and SA (and so obviously the rest), and current one is that England are actually consistent and improving with their attack (which everyone should get onboard with), and I'm expecting a more dominant display against Japan (even though they should have more of their experienced internationals for this one) that highlights further growth from July. 👍

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