Rugby: England's Jones ready to ring changes for France 'slogathon'

Sports Tuesday 06/March/2018 14:20 PM
By: Times News Service
Rugby: England's Jones ready to ring changes for France 'slogathon'

London: England coach Eddie Jones has said "no one is indispensable" as he considers his options ahead of Saturday's Six Nations clash away to France.
Jones said he rose at 4 a.m. on Monday, unable to find tactical solutions as he mulled over England's 25-13 defeat by Scotland at Murrayfield last month.
"I always find it's the best time to think. I don't have anxiety, I just have thoughts about what we have to fix," Jones told reporters. "If you ask any coach who has coached at a high level they would say the same."
With rain forecast at the Stade de France and the pitch invariably on the heavy side, Jones is not ruling out a "horses for courses" selection, which may involve changing his midfield combination of George Ford and Owen Farrell.
"I'm not wedded to anything," the Australian added. "The players understand that. They've got to perform. Who plays at 10 and 12 will be done on who we think is best for that game."
"We're in a high performance environment... means you've got to perform. (If) I lose one game I might be on flight QF1 back to Sydney. Who knows?
"We could pick a team to play a 'slogathon'. They will be very physical and aggressive. (France coach) Jacques Brunel picks very big teams... we know what is going to come at us, we have just got to be good enough to stop it."
The defeat to Scotland ended England's hopes of securing a second grand slam in three years but Jones is convinced it is just a blip rather than a start of a decline for his team.
"You don't win 24 out of 26 games by doing a lot of things wrong," he added. "We do a lot of things right but we just went off course a little bit. We need to just put the ship back on course."