He took it in good spirits.
Eddie Jones may well just steer clear of conferences and Q&As in the future.
Ahead of England’s Six Nations clash with Ireland, at Twickenham, footage of Jones at a sponsor’s event in the summer of 2017 surfaced. Said in jest, his comments on the ‘scummy Irish’ and about Wales being ‘a little shit place’ came across badly on further viewing and he later apologised.
At the weekend, Jones attended the annual Six Nations coaching conference in Bilbao of all places.
Coaches from all the nations met up to trade ideas and discuss practices. Corris Thomas delivered a talk on statistics during the championship and following on from the recent Lions tours. Scotland’s defence coach Matt Taylor offered up an engaging and informative discussion on his key philosophies and principles.
Eddie Jones presenting to the coaches In the 6 Nations coaching conference, philosophy, culture, fundamentals of the game. pic.twitter.com/EQFfanAp41
— Gerry Roberts (@GerryRCoachDev) May 13, 2018
Jones won a lot of praise for his talk, too, and his reaction to some gentle Irish ribbing.
Former Connacht and Ireland outhalf Michael Bradley was up before Jones and covered some of his learnings and experiences from coaching Connacht, Georgia and, last season, Zebre.
Well aware that the Australian was up next, Bradley left up a final slide that contained a meme similar to the one shown below. Ireland, of course, won the Grand Slam after defeating England at Twickenham on March 17.
The only issue was that Jones was already in the room and waiting to go on.
There was much merriment at the slide and the fact that the England head coach was already present but Jones took it all in his stride.
“Guess I had that coming,” he was said to remark before thanking Bradley for the reminder, and his talk.
More fuel for the fire ahead of the 2019 Six Nations.
