Eddie Jones says the jeers from the Twickenham crowd after England’s 24-15 defeat to Ireland in the Six Nations will “put him to sleep”.
When told of the crowd’s reaction by a reporter, the head coach said: “I didn’t hear it. Have you got a replay of it? I’ll listen to it – it’ll put me to sleep tonight. The only thing I can control is coaching the team. I can’t control what you guys write, what the crowd says. All I can do is coach to the best of my ability.”
The 58-year-old said: “It is, unfortunately, something that you have to have because you never find out about yourself unless you have these runs. Every team I have had that has been a champion team has had these runs which have been instrumental in how you re-make a team.
“When you take over it is reasonably easy, like I did with England, it is quite easy to improve them quickly because you get fix certain things that need fixing quickly. But internal mechanisms take time to fix and that is the slow burner. Unless you fix them they catch up with you when you get to the big tournaments such as the World Cup.
“So for us it has been an enormously beneficial tournament if disappointing because we are finding out about how to be a better team. We have to get a greater depth to our squad that can play Test rugby.”
Jones said: “We wanted to play with bigger dead ball areas which we’re quite allowed to under the laws. Everyone was aware of it.” Asked if his decision had backfired following Stockdale’s try, he responded: “Not really. It’s just part of the game.”
