Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

England Jones' England already targeting one of their Six Nations rivals

Eddie Jones

Head coach Eddie Jones has warned England’s Six Nations rivals that his young team still has plenty of improvement to make after taking care of South Africa and Australia in their impressive Autumn Nations series.

ADVERTISEMENT

Jones capped 23 players in 2021 and admitted some of those new caps had to be thrown into test rugby even though there were question marks over their ability to survive the ultimate challenge in the sport. However, the likes of Bevan Rodd, Raffi Quirke, Freddie Steward and Nic Dolly showed that English rugby is delivering youngsters with the skills to help drive England towards the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France.

Jones said: “We set out at the start of the Autumn to create a new England which revolved around changing the selection and bringing in some young players in and being more aggressive with our attack as the game required. Whilst we have had good results our performance is still at a level where there is a lot of improvement in us and the great thing is we have four campaigns before the World Cup in 2023 so the next one – the Six Nations – is a great opportunity for us to keep improving.

Video Spacer

Guess the Olympic Gold medal hero | Max Whitlock | England Rugby

Video Player is loading.
Current Time 0:00
Duration 2:20
Loaded: 0%
Stream Type LIVE
Remaining Time 2:20
 
1x
    • Chapters
    • descriptions off, selected
    • captions off, selected
    • en (Main), selected
    Video Spacer

    Guess the Olympic Gold medal hero | Max Whitlock | England Rugby

    “We have very good group of players who work every well and hard together and they are looking forward to the challenge of becoming even better at the next Six Nations.

    “Over the last two weeks we have beaten the third best team in the world and the best and have had our challenges in terms of Covid and a number of injuries where some young guys we thought weren’t ready to play at that level have been given that opportunity and acquitted themselves really well and so we have added to the depth and competition. We have also added to the hunger of the side which is really important because with the development of some of the younger players quicker than we thought puts enormous competitive strains on getting selected which is a good position to be in.

    “The Six Nations is the next one and is another opportunity to improve and that is our focus. The game we are thinking about is the Scotland game and we will get back together in December. There are number of good young players and we have had 23 new caps this season and a lot of those players are going to have great careers in front of them -If they keep working hard and that hunger to get better .

    “Nic Dolly was going back to play for Coventry, got a call up from Leicester and played four or five games for them find himself in the England squad and coming up against the best pack in the world in front of 82,000 people at Twickenham. What a story in terms of resilience and keep doing your work and taking the opportunity when it comes.”

    ADVERTISEMENT

    Jones paid tribute to the impact former Wasps attack coach Martin Gleeson has had on the squad and expects this to become even more obvious in the Six Nations thanks to the continued emphasis by referees on helping deliver quick ruck ball.

    He added: “The speed of ruck ball dictates how you can play rugby always, has and always will. You never really know when you bring a new coach in but Martin has been absolutely outstanding. His eye for detail and understanding of the game is first class and him and Anthony Seibold in that attack-defence area have made a really good impression on the team and will continue to add value as we go along.

    “The way the players stuck to the game (against South Africa) was fantastic and in big test matches you sometimes have to win the game two or three times and we had to win that at least two times.

    “In those sort of games you have to stay in the moment which we did very well and didn’t allow ourselves to get to flustered or frustrated by the welter of penalties going against us. You know that the game will come back to you if you hang in there long enough and they hung in there long enough. It doesn’t hide the fact there are areas of our game where we can consistently improve – around the set-piece, the breakdown is providing more challenges as the weeks go by and we need get better in that area.

    ADVERTISEMENT

    “I was really happy with the attitude and the character which the team showed. “

    ADVERTISEMENT

    O2 Inside Line: This Rose | Episode 1

    New Zealand v Ireland | Rugby World Cup 1995 | The Vaults

    Behind the scenes with the NEW ZEALAND women's sevens team in Perth | HSBC SVNS Embedded | Episode 5

    Argentina v Australia | HSBC SVNS Perth 2025 | Men's Final Match Highlights

    New Zealand v Australia | HSBC SVNS Perth 2025 | Women's Final Match Highlights

    The Dupont Ploy: How France went from underdogs to Olympic gods | The Report

    Former rugby player is truly an NFL superstar | Walk the Talk | Jordan Mailata

    Boks Office | Episode 33 | Dupont's Toulouse Too Good

    Trending on RugbyPass

    Comments

    2 Comments
    B
    Ben 1168 days ago

    The ref will often miss things and you always find debateable actions in the confusion of scrums and mauls. Blaming the ref is a cop-out - the best way to win is to take it out of the ref's hands and score decisive tries with clear-cut line breaks like England did (and Mapimpi !), despite huge penalty count against them. Winning on penalties and send-offs are hollow.

    i
    isaac 1168 days ago

    Eddie ..please get over yourself...you won because of the ref ...

    Join free and tell us what you really think!

    Sign up for free
    ADVERTISEMENT

    Latest Features

    Comments on RugbyPass

    R
    RedWarrior 14 minutes ago
    Many England fans echoing the same gripe following Six Nations loss

    The English defense was excellent in the first half. This is considering Ireland's attack has improved significantly since the Autumn with former Leinster attack coach Goodman. Ireland were beaten by NZ in the Autumn, are behind SA and arguably behind France so de facto 4th in order (rankings take time to catch up) As Eddie Jones said Ireland are still in that elite group so England's domination in the first half is noteworthy.

    I believe they have spent the time since the Autumn largely on defence. On broken play they were relying on Smiths instint along with some jiggery pokery. For Smiths early line break a Twindaloo blocked Baird which left the gap for smith. It looked like he did Aki, but Baird was a little late arriving and clever play by Tom Curry allowed the gap for Smith. Earls line break was Smith spotting Baird coming out and beating him with a beautiful pass to Earl.

    We saw the rehearsed plays for a couple of Ireland's tries. The Aki try was just identifying that England tended to hide Smith on the wing creating a vulnerability which Ireland exploited with one of Akis great finishes.

    Although Ireland were relaxing at the end the two English tries were good enough quality and we may see more of it next week (Scotland will also have taken note).

    Although on the easier side of the draw Borthwick almost took England to a RWC final.

    But in common with the top4 you need to have firepower to get those tries in big games. Can Borthwick manage that? I don't think so.

    Next week even if England have a great first half again, you would be looking at France converting 3 of those Irish chances and pushing on after the break.

    Can Borthwick develop a plan to beat France in the next few years. If the answer is no England need to find someone who can.

    9 Go to comments
    LONG READ
    LONG READ What trends you should be looking out for in this year's Six Nations What trends you should be looking out for in this year's Six Nations
    Search