England coach Eddie Jones to visit Orica-GreenEdge at Tour de France
Monday 27 June 2016 13:08, UK
England head coach Eddie Jones plans to spend time with Orica-GreenEdge at next month's Tour de France in an effort to develop his coaching methods.
Jones successfully guided England to a 3-0 series whitewash of Australia on Saturday to cap a remarkable first season at the helm.
England have won nine matches in a row under Jones and the 56-year-old Australian will be hoping for more of the same when his side face the Wallabies, South Africa, Fiji and Argentina in a busy Autumn schedule.
Jones insists he needs to improve as a coach if he is to help England replace New Zealand as the number one side on the planet.
"I'm going to go on the Tour de France for a bit and watch how Orica-GreenEdge prepare, probably next weekend," Jones said.
"I'm keen to have a look at what they do because I've got to get better. If the team's not consistent, then our coaching's not good enough. I've got to get better and our coaching staff have got to get better.
"The next two months are about us getting better and then planning our strategy going forward. You can never take your foot off the pedal. As soon as you take it off, you get weak.
"And we can't afford to get weak because while we want to be the number one team in the world, we are still miles away from the All Blacks. We've got to keep improving."
England's recent success has elevated themselves to second place in rugby's global rankings, behind the habitually ranked number one side, New Zealand.
And Jones is unlikely to get the chance to test his players against Steven Hansen's world champions until 2018.
"It doesn't matter because I don't control the schedule, but I'd be happy to play them tomorrow," Jones said.
Despite England's success over the past 12 months, Jones insists none of his current squad can be described as world class.
However, the head coach believes a number of his players are moving in the right direction and reserved special praise for Saracens duo Owen Farrell and Billy Vunipola.
"We haven't got five. If you picked a world XV now, we haven't got them. Players are developing. It doesn't just happen like this [clicks fingers]," he said.
"It takes years to develop a world-class player. Owen Farrell is definitely moving in the right direction and Billy Vunipola is too.
"A couple of other guys have been found out on tour - they did really well in the Six Nations and have been quite poor on tour. This has been a great learning experience for them."
