Jones: ‘England in very good position for Slam’

Editor

England boss Eddie Jones set his sights on securing a second consecutive Grand Slam after defeating Scotland on Saturday.

A one-way thrashing of Scotland saw England win the Calcutta Cup and this year’s Six Nations title ahead of their fifth and final match against Ireland next weekend in Dublin.

“It has put us in a very good position and we can go to Ireland and win the Grand Slam and no team in the history of the Six Nations has won back-to-back Slams,” Jones said.

“It has only been done four or five times in Four and Five Nations history and it is a fantastic opportunity, and this game has given us that.”

England centre Jonathan Joseph finished with a hat-trick and Jones was full of praise for the way his team created a platform for the Bath back to excel.

“We were good in our set-piece, our breakdown work was generally good against a good jackalling team and we executed some lovely plays,” he said.

“Some of the space created for JJ today was absolutely outstanding and it was the work of George and Owen on the inside,” Jones stated.

England led 30-7 at half-time but Jones revealed that he had driven home the message that the scoreboard needed to continue ticking over if the side eventually want to become the best in the world.

“[I said] that we were ruthless and that we behave like the number one team in the world. The number one team in the world goes on and finishes that off. There were some great lessons for us today.”

Jones clarified that England still have some way to go to reach that status, despite matching New Zealand’s record of 18 Tier 1 victories in a row.

“We are not the number one team in the world – you have just got to look at the rankings,” Jones said.

“We are number two and there is a gap between us and the number one team. We are not beating our chest and saying we are the number one team in the world but we aspire to be the number one team in the world.”