England: Sam Simmonds gets behind Eddie Jones as another poor Six Nations looms
England number eight Sam Simmonds has backed head coach Eddie Jones despite the team being on the verge of another fifth place finish in the Six Nations.
If England fall to France in Paris and other results go against them in Cardiff and Dublin, Jones and his side are set to end up one spot above basement outfit Italy.
That would be a repeat of last year’s Six Nations effort and has already led to tough questions being posed to the head coach from the media regarding his position.
Praise for England head coach
Asked on Monday if he is the right man to lead England to the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France, coach Jones quipped: “I don’t think it helps being an Australian”.
However, the battling performance with 14 men against Ireland has at least gained England some praise since the weekend, with Simmonds getting behind Jones.
“Eddie’s experience in the game is amazing. When he talks, boys listen,” he said.
“I feel like as a group, probably in this campaign more than any other, we’ve come together as a squad.
“Although that maybe hasn’t been reflected in the results against Scotland and Ireland, I feel like people could see at Twickenham on Saturday what it meant for us to play for England.
“Also, we’re not just playing for England, we’re playing for the coaches. It’s big to see that and how much confidence we have in what Eddie does and in how we play the game at the weekend.
“He’s improved my game and I wouldn’t say there is a player who has left camp who hasn’t improved and taken on board the things that Eddie’s said.”
If England collapse against France, there will renewed pressure on Jones as another Six Nations passes without having staged a meaningful challenge for the title.
But Simmonds, who is competing with Alex Dombrandt to start at number eight, insists a plan has been hatched to derail the juggernaut that will coming hurtling towards his team on Saturday.
“Against a huge French pack, you don’t want to be going too high against them. It’s something we talked about this week – our chop tackles need to be good and our second man needs to be good to wrap the ball up as well because they love to offload,” he said.
“They’re very good in unstructured play and that’s probably where they got most of their momentum – from offloads and unstructured play.
“So we have talked about chopping the big fellas down, making them get up, chopping them down, making them get up. Hopefully they tire towards the end of the game.
“We can counteract what they do and potentially try to move them around a little bit more, to dampen down their strengths and turn them into weaknesses.”
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