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'Not fit for purpose': Eddie Jones accused of gaslighting as England's loss leaves fans furious
By Sam Smith
England's catastrophic start to the Autumn Nations Series has been ridiculed online after falling to Argentina 30-29 at Twickenham.
Owen Farrell led Eddie Jones’ side out for the Autumn Nations Series opener in a much vaunted midfield trio alongside fly-half Marcus Smith and Manu Tuilagi at 13.
Despite the pre-game hype, England looked abject in attack, with little more than route one carrying from the Tuilagi and Bath wing Joe Cokanasiga to rely on for any momentum, while relying on 33-year-old scrum-half Ben Youngs appears to be misguided.
The lack of line-breaking ability has afflicted this England side for much of 2022, with multiple midfield combinations failing to click.
Former England flyhalf and RugbyPass columnist Andy Goode blasted England's misfiring attack, posting: "England looked lethargic and lost at times in attack, fair play to Argentina they took their chances well and scored a try worthy of victory in any game. Cheika gets his first win over Eddie Jones too."
English journalist and RugbyPass contributor Chris Jones wrote: "So England Rugby lose 30-29 to UAR at home and Eddie Jones says there are too many penalties in the game. He’s right and many given away by dumb play from his players."
Rugby Paper journalist Neil Fisler questioned the wisdom of keeping Jones on, suggested he should have been binned off long ago. "Eddie Jones should have been removed as England coach a long time ago. Surely we aren’t going to let him stay until after the World Cup."
England fans were less reserved with their assessments labelling it 'atrocious', 'appalling display' and a 'snooze fest'.
Eddie Jones was called out for 'gas lighting' over misleading England fans as the standard of play has dropped over his tenure despite his insistance that progress is being made.
Another angry punter wrote: "That was a pathetic performance from England. Atrocious handling, no conviction around the ruck, inaccurate in the set piece, and the same idiotic tendency to haemorrhage penalties. Youngs really needs to be forcibly retired. Smith needs rapid service."
In his post-match comments on Amazon Prime, head coach Eddie Jones said he couldn't pinpoint what went wrong and lamented the lack of cohesion in his side.
"Losing always hurts. It was one of those games, the lead changed a lot," he said.
"You can't put your finger on what went wrong. Structurally we had control of the game but we kept making fundamental mistakes and easy errors.
"We have no excuses, the referee, the pitch was the same for both teams. They got the points at the right time. We lacked cohesion."
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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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