Jones plans to stay quiet

England manager Eddie Jones has said he will not speak to the media until the day before the big game against Wales on March 12.

Jones made the decision after causing an uproar in the run-up to Saturday’s win over Ireland with comments he made about Ireland fly-half Johnny Sexton.

The Australian suggested the England squad could “target” Sexton and said the Irishman’s parents “would be worried” about a whiplash injury the player suffered against France.

England won the match 21-10 and are now three-fifths of the way to winning a Grand Slam in their first RBS Six Nations under new coach Jones.

But Jones was condemned for his pre-match comments and said he would remain silent ahead of the crucial clash against Wales at Twickenham, which could decide the destination of the title.

“From this press conference onwards I am not going to be in the media,” Jones said when addressing the media after the Ireland game.

“I don’t want to fearmonger or do anything that might offend the media or people’s parents.

“Until next Friday, before the Wales game, I will not speak to the media. That way, no one will have to worry about scaremongering and that sort of thing.

“Dude, if I don’t say anything, you’ll leave the press conference saying it’s boring. If I say something, I’m scary. I can’t win, so the easiest way is for me not to come to the press conference.

“I’ll leave that to Warren Gatland (Wales manager), he’s pretty good at that.”

Asked if he regretted the quote about Sexton’s parents, Jones said: “I don’t regret anything. Why would I? Ireland said he had whiplash injuries, I didn’t.

“It’s a sideshow, it’s over. The main event is over, we’re not talking about the sideshow anymore.”

Second-half tries from Anthony Watson and Mike Brown proved decisive as England won their first match at Twickenham under Jones.

And the coach was pleased with the overall performance, although he felt a more clinical team would have won by a bigger margin.

“Ireland are the reigning Six Nations champions so we were expecting a tough game,” he said. “We gave away 10-15 points in the first half. The structure of our attack was great but the finishing wasn’t.

“It was a great step forward. We needed to improve some technical points. If we had won 30-10, we could have said it was one of our most impressive performances of all time.”

Asked about the possibility of a Grand Slam, Jones replied: “I’m still trying to understand what a Grand Slam is! All we want to do is beat Wales in two weeks’ time.”