Eddie Jones defends his outburst after England's win over Argentina at Twickenham
Sunday 12 November 2017 11:22, UK
Eddie Jones insisted he has the right to vent his frustration after England opened their autumn campaign with a scrappy 21-8 win over Argentina.
Nathan Hughes' first Test try and Semesa Rokoduguni's second-half score earned victory at Twickenham on Saturday, while Jones was caught by television slamming down his notebook and voicing his displeasure at one point.
"I don't see there's any reason why I shouldn't be frustrated," Jones said.
"We want to play well. We want to play good rugby. It was a grindathon. They played well. We were off the pace a little bit, but I thought there were some things we did really well.
"The reality is we haven't played a game since March together. We had players coming back from the Lions who have done two training sessions with us.
"Our fluency and our understanding wasn't there, which is understandable."
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England play Jones' compatriots Australia next Saturday - live on Sky Sports - in a match which will offer a sterner test.
The Australian added: "We're hoping Australia bring their absolute best game. And see where we're at.
"We've got a very clear vision of how we want to play against Australia. It should be fun."
England rested Maro Itoje and Owen Farrell, who acted as water carrier.
An area that needed improving was the midfield axis of George Ford, who kicked 11 points, Henry Slade and Jonathan Joseph. And Farrell, who is Jones' preferred inside centre, is widely expected to return against the Wallabies.
Jones said: "He did a great job as water boy. You should never do a good job at the job you're given. He could be a good water boy next week."
On the England midfield, Jones said: "It's that understanding between your 10-12-13. It wasn't quite there today. They just didn't gel. These things happen. Literally we've had four training sessions together.
"That understanding comes from playing together, you need time together, so we'll be so much better next week.
"In terms of looking at increasing the depth of the squad today - which again I reinforce as being the theme of 2017 - I think we did that."
Jones pointed to the performances of openside flanker Sam Underhill, replacement number eight Sam Simmonds, props Ellis Genge and Harry Williams and centre Alex Lozowski as encouraging.
Anthony Watson also showed he is an option at full-back after Mike Brown was substituted following a heavy landing on his head in the first half.
Jones said Brown was "good" and would not be drawn on whether Joaquin Tuculet should have received a harsher penalty than a yellow card for the aerial challenge.
"He was obviously hit pretty heavily," Jones said. "We lose a player for the whole game, they lose a player for 10 minutes."
Argentina, who have now lost 18 times in 23 Tests since reaching the 2015 World Cup semi-finals, scored a late try through Nicolas Sanchez.
But they have now lost all four of their Tests against Jones' England, who will be their group stage opponents at the 2019 World Cup.
Pumas head coach Daniel Hourcade said: "It was a really tough game where we fought a lot for the ball. It was a big battle in the forwards.
"There were very few opportunities for both sides. England took advantage when they had opportunities and we were not able to."
