Eddie Jones urges England fans to keep faith after humiliating defeat to Barbarians

Eddie Jones, the England head coach, urged supporters to keep faith with his developing team after they suffered a humiliating 52-21 loss to a 14-man Barbarians side at Twickenham ahead of their tour of Australia.

Jones vowed that England would not be on the receiving end of similar score-lines over a three-Test series against the Wallabies after suffering his heaviest defeat as head coach, although he did admit that a number of injury worries will be assessed before finalising his travelling squad.

In England’s first match since going down 25-13 to France in March, their third defeat of the Six Nations, they were again beaten by a coaching team of Fabien Galthié and Shaun Edwards. The Barbarians plundered eight tries despite Will Skelton receiving a red card close to the half-hour mark. Jones stressed that the result would have no bearing on this summer.

“No one is happy about it but again we look at it in the light of what we’re trying to do,” he said. “There’s a contextual situation here. I know you’re struggling to understand it, but we’re trying to build a new team, play a different way, a style that suits our players and there are going to be some ups and downs.”

“We’re not going to Australia and get beaten by 50 and run the ball from our own 22 but we have a style of play that we want to keep developing now and we’ll pick and choose when we use it,” Jones added.

Alex Dombrandt, who withdrew before kick-off and watched from the stands wearing a knee brace, has added to England’s concerns while Leicester fly-half George Ford and Saracens No 8 Billy Vunipola are also injury doubts.

Dombrandt will see a specialist on Monday morning after suffering a knee injury in training. Vunipola, his most obvious replacement, is