Northern Edition

Select Edition

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

'Wait for the video... I have got the production team on it now'

(Photo by PA)

Eddie Jones managed to find some room for levity in the wake of Saturday’s 20-17 loss to Scotland, the beaten England coach quipping tongue-in-cheek that he has got a production team already working away on putting together a Rassie Erasmus-like video critical of the refereeing decisions made in the Guinness Six Nations opener at Murrayfield. 

ADVERTISEMENT

England looked set for victory after a dominant second-half effort had seen them overturn a 6-10 interval deficient to lead 17-10 with 16 minutes remaining when they called their lone points scorer Marcus Smith ashore. 

However, they soon imploded, the yellow-carded Luke Cowan-Dickie conceding a penalty try and Scotland then went ahead with a penalty at a scrum after loosehead Joe Marker stuffed up throwing in at the lineout with no England hooker on the field. 

Video Spacer

ASX Sports Fantasy Rugby | A new generation of fantasy rugby is here with apps for iOS and Android!

Video Spacer

ASX Sports Fantasy Rugby | A new generation of fantasy rugby is here with apps for iOS and Android!

England next turned down a game-levelling penalty kick to instead go down the line in the closing minutes and the match then ended up in frustration, referee Ben O’Keeffe opting not to reward scrum dominance with the penalty that would have allowed replacement George Ford the chance to draw the match with the last kick.   

Jones refused to be drawn into critiquing the referee. He instead batted away the query by referencing Springboks director of rugby Erasmus who videoed a 62-minute rant following the first Lions Test last July, criticism that resulted in him getting a two-month total ban from all rugby. 

“It was three points at the end and the referee becomes pretty influential in those situations. Wait for the video, mate. It’s coming out. I have got the production team on it now. It is called ‘Rassie In Love With’. That is my production team so I am getting ready,” joked Jones at his post-game media briefing. 

“We have only got ourselves to blame,” he added, adopting a more serious reflection on the round one loss. “We are massively disappointed that we lost and Scotland deserved to win, but we dominated a lot of the game but didn’t get the points out of the domination.

ADVERTISEMENT

“At the end of the day rugby is a pretty simple game – if you dominate you have to get points and you have to get enough to be in front of the opposition at the end. The result is the result and it is tough for us to start the tournament like that. We had a good preparation and played with a lot of drive and determination. We will go to Italy next week and be even better.”

On Cowan-Dickie, he said: “Luke is disappointed, that happens in the moment. He played exceptionally well and he is very disappointed, but all the boys are supporting him.” On taking off talisman Smith, he added: “We felt that George could come on and do a job for us in the last 20 minutes.”

As for the costly decision to allow Marler throw-in at the lineout without getting on sub Jamie George to take it, the coach commented: “We thought we would wait for a scrum because we wanted to keep the back-rowers on. At that stage, Scotland were moving the ball around a lot and we felt we needed that third back-rower on. Certainly, I’d take the blame for that.

“We kicked well. We forced a number of line dropouts and attacked well from that (in the first half). They defended really well. We got held over the line once. Could we have been a bit more clinical in our attack? Yes, and we would like to do that in the future.”

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

J
JW 1 hour ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Where? I remember saying "unders"? The LNR was formed by the FFR, if I said that in a way that meant the 'pro' side of the game didn't have an equal representation/say as the 'amateur' side (FFR remit) that was not my intent.


But also, as it is the governing body, it also has more responsibility. As long as WR looks at FFR as the running body for rugby in France, that 'power' will remain. If the LNR refuses to govern their clubs use of players to enable a request by FFR (from WR) to ensure it's players are able to compete in International rugby takes place they will simply remove their participation. If the players complain to the France's body, either of their health and safety concerns (through playing too many 'minutes' etc) or that they are not allowed to be part in matches of national interest, my understanding is action can be taken against the LNR like it could be any other body/business. I see where you're coming from now re EPCR and the shake up they gave it, yes, that wasn't meant to be a separate statement to say that FFR can threaten them with EPCR expulsion by itself, simply that it would be a strong repercussion for those teams to be removed (no one would want them after the above).


You keep bringing up these other things I cannot understand why. Again, do you think if the LNR were not acting responsibly they would be able to get away with whatever they want (the attitude of these posters saying "they pay the players")? You may deem what theyre doing currently as being irresponsible but most do not. Countries like New Zealand have not even complained about it because they've never had it different, never got things like windfall TV contracts from France, so they can't complain because theyre not missing out on anything. Sure, if the French kept doing things like withholding million dollar game payments, or causing millions of dollars of devaluation in rights, they these things I'm outlining would be taking place. That's not the case currently however, no one here really cares what the French do. It's upto them to sort themselves out if they're not happy. Now, that said, if they did make it obvious to World Rugby that they were never going to send the French side away (like they possibly did stating their intent to exclude 20 targeted players) in July, well then they would simply be given XV fixtures against tier 2 sides during that window and the FFR would need to do things like the 50/50 revenue split to get big teams visiting in Nov.

307 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING The Wallabies have a serious problem The Wallabies have a serious problem
Search