Eddie Jones has given the Six Nations pot a vigorous stir on the eve of this year’s tournament by dismissing the notion of English arrogance as “absolutely ridiculous” and revealing his squad have been discussing the key battles of the hundred years war ahead of the opening Test against France on Saturday.
England’s players, according to Jones, were challenged by Paul Gustard, their defence coach, this week to guess how many times their country had fought against France. “We’ve got one staff member, he is into history,” Jones said.
“Certainly there is history between France and England ... it’s always a historic game. So there have been 20 wars, have there? That’s a lot of rivalry there. There is another one happening on Saturday.”
The idea was to remind the team that France are invariably tough opponents but, with Anglo-French relations under Brexit-related strain, Jones and Gustard have picked a sensitive moment to ruffle Gallic feathers. The Australian has also hit back at comments by the former Scotland and Lions coach Jim Telfer, who criticised England’s “disdainful” supporters and compared Jones to Donald Trump.
“Jim’s quite entitled not to like me, that’s his prerogative,” Jones said. “But to say the fans at Twickenham are arrogant is absolutely ridiculous. I’ve coached all around the world and I think the fans at Twickenham are passionate, loyal, reasonably well educated and provide a great atmosphere. It’s one of the greatest rugby grounds in the world. If he doesn’t like that, don’t come.”
Jones is well aware that, when it comes to sport, England tend to be public enemy No1. “Coaching England you feel the other countries enjoy the rivalry against England. They see England as the gifted one. They’ve got the biggest union, they’ve got Twickenham and the most money so it’s a little bit ‘us versus them’. I can still recall a little Scottish boy last year shouting out: ‘We’re going to stuff you, we’re going to stuff you!’ He was full on. He needed his mother to grab him by the back of neck and pull him back into line. The ex-players like to stir it up, too.”
In Jones’s view the English are, if anything, too polite and need to stand up for themselves a bit more. “I find the English to be very reserved. The last thing I find them to be is arrogant. We are encouraging the players to be more forthright. To me that is [a] problem. Maybe football is the same ... the players are too reserved.”
England, either way, are determined not to tiptoe into the opening game on Saturday and fall victim to complacency. “If we do what Arsenal did [against Watford] on Tuesday we will be in trouble. It’s really important that they’re in the game right from the start and that’s in the head. It’s like going down the coalmine every day. We’ve just got to do the business and our players will. It’s nice if people like you, but for us our business is to win games of rugby, because that’s how we make rugby popular.”
Jones is equally determined to give the French a physical contest – “Rugby is a contact sport, if you don’t want contact, play volleyball” – and has laid into an England player for assuming he knew what France would offer: “We were going over various aspects and one of the players said: ‘Yeah, we know what to do.’ That’s being complacent. We got the sledgehammer out and knocked it on the head.”
He also revealed England came close to losing their head coach in a drive-by accident. “I nearly got run over the other day. I was coming out of the car, was answering a message and a car flew past.” It did not take him very long to identify a prime suspect: “I reckon someone’s gunning for me. Jim’s got his Scottish army out.”
