Jones insists England will be 'so much better' against Wallabies
Christopher Devine
November 11, 2017 05:07 MYT
November 11, 2017 05:07 MYT
Eddie Jones is confident England will deliver a much-improved display against Australia next weekend, after they struggled for fluency in a 21-8 win over Argentina at Twickenham.
Tries from Nathan Hughes and Semesa Rokoduguni helped England to victory on Saturday, but Jones was clearly frustrated during the second period, when television cameras captured a foul-mouthed outburst from the head coach.
Jones was much more relaxed by the time he addressed the media in a post-match news conference and highlighted England's lack of match action since the Six Nations, aside from a brief tour of Argentina that saw the squad severely weakened by British and Irish Lions call-ups.
"We were off the pace a little bit but I thought there were some things we did really well," said Jones, who described the match as a "grindathon".
"The reality is we haven't played a game together since March and we've had players coming back from the [British and Irish] Lions who've done two training sessions with us, so our fluency and our understanding wasn't there, which is understandable.
"You need time together, so we'll be so much better next week.
"We want Australia to bring their best game and see where we're at. These games are about finding out where we're at.
"We've got a very clear vision of how we want to play against Australia. It should be fun."
Owen Farrell - rested on Saturday along with Saracens team-mate Maro Itoje - appears highly likely to return against the Wallabies.
Asked if that would be the case, a laughing Jones replied: "Well, he did a great job as water boy. You should never do a good job at the job you're given, so he could be a good water boy next week."
England could well be without Mike Brown, though, after the full-back landed head-first on the ground following a contest for a high ball with Joaquin Tuculet, who was yellow-carded.
"He's good," said Jones of Brown. "He'll have to do return-to-play [protocols]. He was obviously hit pretty heavily. We lose a player for the whole game, they lose a player for 10 minutes."
Pressed on whether a yellow card was the right sanction for Tuculet, Jones added: "I don't know. I'm not a referee."
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