RFU’s rosy view of England under Eddie Jones decried as ‘dishonest’

The Rugby Football Union has been accused of dishonesty after claiming that England have made progress under Eddie Jones during the Six Nations.

Jones, contracted until the end of the 2023 World Cup, has come under increasing pressure after England finished with just two victories in the Six Nations with several former players calling for him to be sacked. The RFU, however, issued a statement on Sunday insisting he has the union’s “full support”, going on to claim that it was “encouraged by the solid progress” made by England and that “strong positive steps forward” had been taken.

England, however, also finished with two wins 12 months ago and in scoring eight tries across the entire tournament they managed four fewer than last year. As was the case then, the RFU will hold a debrief into England’s campaign and while there are performance-related break clauses in Jones’s contract, there seems no prospect of the union’s chief executive, Bill Sweeney, invoking them.

Addressing the statement, attributed to an RFU spokesperson, the former England and British & Irish Lions wing and Guardian columnist Ugo Monye said on the BBC ‘s Rugby Union Daily podcast: “If you are going to make a statement on behalf of the RFU, I want to know who is saying it.

“I think everyone wants to know who is saying it. Who, in the eyes of the RFU, thinks that signified progress and that they are happy with how things are at the moment?. My first thought was, in fact I had to read it again, I thought, ‘this is class banter’. Genuinely. Fundamentally, it’s just dishonest. There isn’t progress. Two out of five last year was an underperformance, hence why we had to have this deep-dive review, which questioned absolutely everything.”

The former Wales and