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'I wouldn't get rid of him' - Neil Back defends Jones despite bad call on Saracens players
By AAP
Neil Back has urged Twickenham to keep faith with embattled head coach Eddie Jones in the belief he is best equipped to lead England out of their slump.
England fell to their worst Six Nations performance by finishing fifth, placing Jones at the centre of a Rugby Football Union investigation into what went wrong, with a verdict due in mid-April.
RFU chief executive Bill Sweeney has promised a “brutally honest analysis” and has declined to give Jones public support as the Australian fights for his future.
Jones’ win ratio of 77 per cent is appreciated at Twickenham and Back, England’s World Cup-winning openside, believes his success in plotting a route out of a similarly-troubled period once before must count in his favour.
“Eddie’s a good coach and his record speaks for itself, so I wouldn’t get rid of him. There’s a lot of pressure on him, but that will make him even better,” Back told the PA news agency.
“We’ve been here before under Eddie in 2018. Eighteen months later, we probably played the best any England team has played in the World Cup semi-final against New Zealand. We then got to the final.
“Eddie’s success rate, on paper, is better than any other England manager. He’ll look back on this Championship brutally to see where he and the squad could have done things differently.
“Painful lessons are sometimes very valuable going forward and finishing fifth was massively disappointing.
“He failed to read how the Saracens players who didn’t have a lot of game time would perform. He thought they’d be successful, but he was wrong and will learn from that.
“Undoubtedly there will be changes in players. He’ll bring some new players in to freshen things up.”
Sweeney will lead the debrief which is being conducted by a panel of rugby figures and Jones will be quizzed on concerns over selection, tactics and discipline.
Despite the defeats by Scotland, Wales and Ireland – the first time England have lost to all three home unions since 1976 – Jones’ record of a Grand Slam, two Six Nations titles and a World Cup final appearance is expected to save him.
:: BT Sport is the lead broadcaster of Gallagher Premiership Rugby with every match played behind closed doors live on BT Sport. For more info go to bt.com/sport/rugby-union
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Latest Comments
oh ok, seems strange you didn't put the limit at 7 given you said you thought 8 was too many!
Why did you say "I've told you twice already how I did it but your refuse to listen" when you had clearly not told me that you'd placed a limit of 8 teams per league?
"Agreed with 4 pool of 4 and home and away games?"
I understand the appeal of pools of 4, but 6 pool games might not go down well with the French or the South Africans given already cramped schedules. I do still think that you're right that that would be the best system, but there is going to be a real danger of French and SA sides sending b-teams which could really devalue the competition unless there is a way to incentivise performance, e.g. by allowing teams that do well one year to directly qualify for the next year's competition.
Go to commentsFoster should never have been appointed, and I never liked him as a coach, but the hysteria over his coaching and Sam Cane as a player was grounded in prejudice rather than fact.
The New Zealand Rugby public were blinded by their dislike of Foster to the point of idiocy.
Anything the All Blacks did that was good was attributed to Ryan and Schmidt and Fozzie had nothing to do with it.
Any losses were solely blamed on Foster and Cane.
Foster did develop new talent and kept all the main trophies except the World Cup.
His successor kept the core of his team as well as picking Cane despite him leaving for overseas because he saw the irreplaceable value in him.
Razor will take the ABs to the next level, I have full confidence in that.
He should have been appointed in 2020.
But he wasn’t. And the guy who was has never been treated fairly.
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