Six Nations: ‘We showed great spirit and tactical discipline’ – Eddie Jones

Eddie Jones is proud of how his players played with one man done almost the entirety of the game but wishes referee Mathieu Raynal penalised the Irish scrum more harshly.

England’s title hopes vanished after losing 32-15 to Ireland after Charlie Ewels was red-carded after only 82 seconds.

A late surge from Ireland resulted in two tries that offset what was a close game until that point with England even levelling the scores at 15-15 in the third quarter.

England’s scrum emerged as a key weapon by engineering six penalties and Jones questioned why Raynal did not reach for a yellow card.

“I’m a bit disappointed the referee didn’t allow us to scrum fully. That would be my only complaint – we were not allowed to play advantage away from the scrum. We got four scrum penalties and there was no sign of a yellow card,” Jones said.

“We want to have a powerful scrum and if World Rugby want to have the scrum in the game they have got to allow the strong scrums to dominate. We are disappointed we didn’t get more out of that.

“We showed great spirit and great tactical discipline. There was about 15 minutes to go, it was 15-15 and we were controlling the game and we just made a couple of mistakes that allowed them into the game.

“It was a great learning experience for this team. I see that as a foundation game for us where we set our campaign for the World Cup in 2023.

“The spirit, the determination, the ability to work through problems were all absolutely outstanding.

“This pack is only going to get better and better. We want to be an old-fashioned England pack and a new-fashioned England attack. We’re moving in a really solid progression towards that.

“You can see how much the players are enjoying it and how much they want to play