England fans cheered when George Ford was called ashore after 75 minutes.
Eddie Jones’ side tore Wales up at Twickenham to set them up for a three-Test tour of Australia. The final scoreline was 27-13 but the winning margin could have been more.
It would have been more had Ford not missed two penalty kicks and four conversions.
Jones left Ford out on the pitch to try sort out his kicking issues but ended his disappointing outing with five minutes to go. The decision to sub Ford was met with sarcastic cheers from the home crowd.
Post-match, Jones began by saying Ford’s treatment from the English fans was ‘not very nice’.
He used the example of Tiger Woods missing putts and Michael Jordan missing jump-shots to illustrate that everyone has bad days. The rest of Ford’s game, he insisted, was “brilliant”. Jones told reporters:
“He knew when to run and when to kick, and he had a few dabs himself. We scored five tries, one was a bit ‘how’s your mother’, and the other four were scored by backs. If you score four tries against Wales your stand-off is doing something right.
“We’ve just beaten Wales five tries to one and we’re talking about a guy who can’t kick a few goals. It’s quite amazing and just shows the negative reaction in English rugby. I find it quite sad, to be honest.
“Wales are literally full strength, we’re missing 11 players and we’re talking about a young kid who misses some kicks. I think we need to get some perspective on where we’re going in the game here.”
The Six Nations champions should know, England expects.
