Eddie Jones admits Jamie George mistake but stands by George Ford call
Eddie Jones admits the role his mismanagement of replacing Luke Cowan-Dickie played in England’s dramatic 20-17 defeat by Scotland.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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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Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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