England claimed a maiden series win on Australian soil with a 23-7 victory at AAMI Park on Saturday to extend Jones’ ideal record with the old enemy to eight wins from eight attempts.
Advertisement
“This win is for the supporters, the people at the RFU and the people in the amateur game”.
Jones, the former Wallabies coach, urged his team to be ruthless and complete a 3-0 wipe-out of the Australians in Sydney this Saturday in their quest to become the top team in world rugby following their eighth straight win.
He started on the bench for England’s 39-28 victory over Australia in the first test, but he delivered a match-winning cameo before starring again in Melbourne.
The man that took over from sacked England coach Stuart Lancaster after the World Cup did not see Robshaw as a captain or even outstanding in any way at test level.
“I know in 2014, when I first came in, we had that tour (of New Zealand and Europe) where we lost a few games and we got so much out of that for the next season”.
Jones is set to make changes for the third Test knowing many of his players are exhausted, while the fitness of Jack Nowell and James Haskell is being monitored due to respective concussion and foot issues.
England’s defence was being severely tested, but it continued to withstand a huge onslaught and the brilliant Farrell raced away for another try after chasing Jamie George’s grubber, converting before slotting over another late penalty to add insult to injury.
“But the opportunities that we let go tonight just through errors are at this point more at the forefront of my mind than the other things we may be getting from this series”.
But he did isolate Robshaw’s tackle on Wallabies scrum-half Nick Phipps during a heated first-half exchange between several players, an incident that saw Australia captain Stephen Moore penalised following a lengthy video review.
“And there will always be the concept of (we’re) naive not kicking more or playing to the way we want to play the game and backing ourselves”. The power of a strong national team is that it encourages kids to play rugby and we want these guys to be heroes for English rugby. Generally we handled the Australian attack pretty well. Every time we run out there we want to do a job. Midway through the first half, stadium workers could be seen trying to fix the turf while play continued elsewhere on the field.
Farrell put England ahead 10-0 with a penalty goal in the 31st minute after Wallaby Sean McMahon was penalized at the breakdown.
A largely partisan crowd voiced their disapproval when Farrell was given the chance to boot a second penalty and duly stretched the lead to 13-7 after he was adjudged to have been impeded off the ball 11 minutes into the second half.
Advertisement
Bath Rugby fly-half George Ford says England’s remarkable defensive display in their victory over Australia in Melbourne is a reflection of the hard work they put in during the week.
