Eddie Jones has spoken out regarding the ferocity of the Barbarians’ attacking powers during the 63-45 defeat the invitational team inflicted upon his squad on Sunday.
The result marked the fourth consecutive loss for Jones’ England, and a less-than-ideal preparation for the upcoming tour of South Africa.
Speaking after the match, Jones said:
It felt like we were playing one-day cricket; score for score,
In the first 20 minutes, we struggled to adjust to the speed of the game. We got a bit shocked by it. We adjusted well, got ourselves back into the game and played some good rugby. But then when we got fatigued in the last 20 minutes we made some crucial errors in execution and it ended up costing us the game.
The opening twenty minutes proved particularly problematic for the hosts, and ultimately the Barbarians crossed the try-line nine times throughout the course of the game.
Despite the scoreline, Jones was positive about the impact the fixture would have on some of his more inexperienced players:
As an experience for some of the young players, it was absolutely outstanding. I was just speaking to a number of them then and they just struggled to cope with the speed of the game.
You’ve got to look at what the game is. We don’t have our top 15 players and we have another 22 players unavailable, so it was a test of our depth. We played against a very good, fast, powerful Barbarians team and at times we struggled to cope with that.
With the Premiership final the day before, key figures like Owen Farrell, Maro Itoje and Jack Nowell were all absent from the squad.
The Springboks may fancy their chances against an England team down on their luck, but counting out Jones may prove to be ill-advised.
