Eddie Jones hailed the resilience of his young England team, but urged them to be more “ruthless” after keeping their Six Nations hopes alive with a 23-19 win over Wales at Twickenham.
England forged a 17-0 lead before three second-half Welsh tries left the hosts hanging on to win. Nevertheless, Jones was delighted with his team’s showing.
“[It’s] a very good win for us,” Jones said. “Plenty of resilience, plenty of toughness.
“We put ourselves in a good wining position in the first 50 minutes, had a period there of 10 or 20 minutes where we were a bit untidy in defence and let them back in the game, but for a young team there were some good signs out there.”
Jones was hopeful that his team could find a more clinical edge in attack having been outscored three tries to one by Wales.
“We got ourselves in a lot of good attacking positions and we’re able to convert that to points,” he said. “But for a young team we need to find a way to be more ruthless once we get in the opposition’s 22.”
Jones said Tom Curry, who went off at halftime having failed an HIA “was not talking that well”, and was concerned that Luke Cowan-Dickie would not be seen again in this year’s Championship after he picked up a knee injury. He will undergo a scan but is unlikely to be available to face Ireland and France over the next three weeks.
“He’ll probably have some sort of knee injury that’ll probably make it difficult for him to play in the rest of the Six Nations but we’re not sure about it yet,” said Jones.
