“We weren’t good enough and the players have to accept that. My message to the players? ‘Be proud of yourselves, we are back-to-back RB6 Nations champions which is a fantastic achievement.”
Eddie Jones’ post match assessment was as straight down the line as ever and in my eyes wholly accurate. He didn’t sugar coat it but he did take defeat magnanimously and his players followed his words and raised a smile to their back-to-back titles. Lifting a trophy after a defeat is such an emotional dichotomy but I hope that on reflection they will look at their achievements and winning run positively.
I, like many others, were sure that it would be England’s day on Super Saturday and that they would prevail in Dublin. They looked fiercely focused and in the form required to do so yet Ireland put them under intense pressure and were driven by huge performances from the likes of Peter O’Mahony and Iain Henderson. It was another example of the fearless nature of Irish Rugby and Joe Schmidt, his coaching staff and squad can now add ‘double record spoilers’ to their CVs! The loss of Conor Murray and Rob Kearney was less acutely felt than so many of us expected and credit must go to Ireland's full squad for their performance and victory.
Below Eddie Jones’ words dive further into his assesment of the match - or at least the assessment that's open to the public - I'm sure behind closed doors greater detail will be added but here's what we're privy too.
“Sometimes you play against a team that’s better than you and they were better than us today, they were fantastic around the breakdown. There are technical issues around the game that we have to look at but I don’t think that we had any attitudinal problems, I think that our attitude was good - you could see it was still only 13-9 at the end of the game and we didn’t play well.”
Of course these 'technical issues' like struggling with the intensity of Ireland's defence and not handling the conditions as well as they would have liked aren't ideal but it's sport and things like this happen. The area that I believe will hearten Eddie Jones, and not for the first time, is the attitude of his players and how they handled mentally the magnitude of the week and day. Dylan Hartley and his squad were not overawed, did not go into their shells and did not lose due to psychological wobbles, instead Ireland went above and beyond physically. Mental fragilities are so much more challenging to amend than ones that can be changed on a training pitch and the steel that this England squad has will hold them in good stead moving forwards.
For now you’d hope that the players themselves will be given a bit of a rest - yes there’s a Premiership weekend ahead but with the Champions Cup quarter-finals for some after that a week in the sunshine somewhere would be the best course of action. In the build up to Dublin England’s progression lauded and praised to the hills and even in the face of defeat I hope that this continues. They’ve spent around 30% of the time that they will together as a group under this management, have lost one game in their last 19 and have pushed their performance levels forwards with vigour and purpose. It’s been a productive year or so and this just the start leading to 2019. Bumps in the road are necessary and required for teams and individuals to thrive and I remain wholly confident that this group of players and management are on exactly the right track and course of action.
A big question that remains up in the air now is whether or not New Zealand will feature as one of England’s opponents in November? Neither you or I know the answer to that and in the immediate aftermath of defeat there will be calls all around that it's 'too soon' for England to play them. Personally I think that's not the case but it would be a real challenge if England's opening autumn international after a huge Lions series was against the World Champions. Personally I have no qualms about putting it on the other end of the series - as long as players are given adequate rest as a result of an extra international - because the game would be thunderous.
Next we all turn our attentions to Warren Gatland and the Lions Squad debate goes into overdrive. The Six Nations will have taught him a lot and while England's final performance didn't culminate with a W and a double Grand Slam there still should be a very large proportion of the squad on the plane to New Zealand this summer.
