Jones has questioned the Welsh Rugby Union’s values and accused them of trying derail their Grand Slam bid following their decision to release a statement on Thursday afternoon questioning the decision made on Wednesday evening by Six Nations official not to discipline Marler.
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England won all five matches to wrap up their first Grand Slam since 2003 with a 31-21 victory over France in Paris on Saturday.
“The good thing about it is that there’s still a long way to go”, said Jones, who took over from Stuart Lancaster in the wake of England’s early exit from last year’s World Cup on home turf.
Jones, 56, says there is more to come from the side, highlighting the relatively youthful make-up of the squad as a cause for optimism.
“The exciting thing for us is that we have an average age of 24”. We’ve been second for the last four years so to win it and get the Grand Slam has left us chuffed to bits.
James Haskell has told talkSPORT England head coach Eddie Jones will keep the team grounded after their Six Nations triumph, insisting there are tougher tests on the horizon. They were at least even in most of their exchanges and with Jones asking his hookers to hook the ball, they were able to cope with ball from a retreating scrum. He can still get better as captain – and he will – but he has done a really good job.
Meanwhile, Ireland coach Joe Schmidt has revealed he will decide on his worldwide future after the country’s three-Test tour of South Africa in June.
On Sunday Jones said it was a matter of time before England could beat the All Blacks and he has his sights set on developing the England team into world beaters to stop New Zealand’s attempts for a hat-ttrick of World Cup victories at Japan 2019.
“If we want to get better as a team, if we want to be the most dominant side in Europe, we’ve got to beat France”. “Of course we can”, he said.
“The question about whether we can beat the All Blacks or not… maybe not now but in the next two or three years we’ll have a side to beat the All Blacks”, Jones said.
“If we keep working as hard as see have been doing, pushing each other on and off the field, there’s no reason why we can’t challenge the All Blacks”.
Youngs, who played an instrumental part in England’s decisive third try in Paris, took to Twitter after the final whistle to give his reaction.
“France’s best 20 minutes are going to be their first, they have got to get into the game in that first 20 minutes. We’ve got to be good enough to cope with it all”. It’s a great achievement by the team. I think we’re only scraping the surface of it at the moment.
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There was nothing wrong with their play in the 57th minute, however, as man of the match Billy Vunipola carried with intent, Ben Youngs sped free and chipped for Watson to gather and score in the right corner.
