Toby Flood is the latest player to criticise Eddie Jones' methods

Eddie Jones’ gruelling training sessions were a big factor in England’s Six Nations failure, according to Toby Flood.

England went into the tournament aiming to become the first side to win the title outright three years in a row, but finished fifth after three successive defeats against Scotland, France and Ireland.

There have been calls for members of England’s British and Irish Lions contingent to be rested for the upcoming tour of South Africa, but Flood thinks that may not have been necessary if their workloads had been managed better during the Six Nations.

Asked if there is a case for the Lions missing the Springboks series, he told Omnisport: “Yes, but I think there is also a case for talking about how hard England train.

“They talk about how they train faster, quicker and harder than they would want to do and experience in a Test match scenario.

“That is serious training, Test match rugby is as hard as it gets and if there is bits and pieces coming out with players saying they have had the hardest session in their career towards the back end of the Six Nations….you’ve got to be sensible.

“You’ve got to manage your players. You’ve got to know they are coming from a massive load of Lions, to Premiership rugby, to European rugby, then you are playing in the Six Nations.

“If you are still loading them at the back end of the Six Nations, and even at the front end, you can say it’s worked well because they dominated teams and have done for 22 games, but lost one game to Ireland going for the Grand Slam.

“It’s worked and you don’t want to tear everything up, but if you are looking at a team and how tired they are on the back of how hard they are training, that is going to have a wear and tear on you.

“You are not a robot, you can’t just roll in and roll out week in, week out. You have to be managing the workload and I think for me that is ultimately where they have fallen down.”

– Toby Flood was speaking on behalf of Land Rover, the Official Vehicle Partner of Premiership Rugby. This year, Land Rover is celebrating its Testimonial Season; ten seasons of supporting grassroots rugby in the UK through the Land Rover Premiership Rugby Cup.