His side is one match short of setting a new record for successive Test wins and becoming the first in the Six Nations era to win back to back Grand Slams, but Eddie Jones has designs on an even bigger prize that is getting ever closer to being within England’s reach.
Matching the All Blacks in the way they have now done, represents a remarkable achievement in his first 18 Tests in charge, but the chippy Australian wants to surpass more than that record, by replacing them as the leading nation in the global game.
That is why he sent his side out in the second half yesterday with the instruction that they should show ruthlessness worthy of the world’s number one side and the string of records set against a Scotland side that is currently ranked third in the Northern Hemisphere and could still finish second in this championship, saw them do just that.
“We’re not the No.1 team in the world, we’re No.2. We’re not beating our chests and saying we’re the No.1 team in the world but we aspire to be,” he said afterwards.
“We’re one year into a four-year project, that’s the reality of it, so we’ve done reasonably well in the first year but we’ve got to get better.
“We want to be the No.1 team in the world so we’ve got to get better.”
In the meantime there are those potential landmarks to achieve.
“We can go to Ireland now and win the Grand Slam,” said Jones.
“No team ever in the history of the Six Nations has won back-to-back Grand Slams, it’s only been done four times in Five Nations history, so we’ve got a fantastic opportunity because of this game.”
Naturally he knows he cannot afford to allow his players to look at this weekend’s results that have seen them show their most formidable form for the first time in the competition while Ireland suffered a surprise defeat at the hands of a previously struggling Wales and presume that the hard work done.
He was consequently keen to point out that what remains a strong Irish team, still fourth in those world rankings, will now not only have home advantage, but that of playing with nothing to lose, this combination of results meaning that only his men can win anything else in a match that was previously expected to be a title decider.
“Ireland will be a completely different contest. Ireland psychologically are in a very strong position, they’re beaten, they’re out of the tournament, they love spoiling parties and the party they’d love to spoil the most is the England party so they’ve got an enormous amount of psychological advantage,” he observed.
“We’re vulnerable because we’ve one, we’re champions of the Six Nations, we’re in the most vulnerable state so we’re going to have to work really hard to get ourselves right for the game and we’ll be right.”
Naturally, having inherited a team that had suffered the embarrassment of elimination from its own World Cup in the pool stages, Jones is entitled to considerable credit for this run of success, but as all top coaches do, he stressed that the players deserved the credit.
“How many times in your life do you get to be great and that’s the opportunity they’ve got so it’s exciting,” said Jones.
“It’s important to acknowledge your achievements so we’ll do that, we’ll have a couple of quiet drinks tonight and enjoy that but tomorrow night we’ll get together and we’re on to Ireland and we know that’s going to be difficult.”
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