Eddie Jones Is Pretty P*ssed Off With Former Scotland Coaches’ ‘Ridiculous’ Comments
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Legendary Scotland and Lions coach Jim Telfer launched a scathing attack on Eddie Jones and English fans in Twickenham this week, comparing the England boss to Donald Trump and branding the famous stadium a ‘concrete jungle.’
Speaking in the London Times, Telfer said that the English fans think they’re superior, and don’t appreciate the opposition.
“Twickenham I find intimidating. The whole atmosphere is intimidating, there’s so many of them, three tiers of them.
If you ever think about wanting separation from England just sit 10 minutes in Twickenham and listen to them.
They think they’re superior and a lot of them will come from the south-east, bags of money and bags of this and bags of that. They don’t appreciate the other team.”
In France, they boo the other team, in Argentina they boo the other team, in England, it’s just disdain – “Why are we playing these plebs?”
I don’t like Twickenham; a concrete jungle, nothing attractive about it at all.
In relation to Jones, Telfer drew comparisons to none other than President Trump himself.
Eddie Jones doesn’t want to beat teams, he wants to demolish them, which I find a bit disappointing.
The way he speaks, it’s a bit like Donald Trump. He wants to be the big man, you know?
His goal is to win the World Cup in 2019 and so far it’s gone well, but I think he could be a little more circumspect, show a bit more respect for the opposition.
He doesn’t seem to show much respect and it could come back to bite him.
Eddie Jones has now responded by insisting it is “absolutely ridiculous” to suggest England rugby players and their fans are “arrogant.”
“Jim’s quite entitled not to like me, that’s his prerogative,” Jones said after naming his side to play France on Saturday.
“But to say the fans at Twickenham are arrogant is absolutely ridiculous.
“I’ve coached all around the world and I think the fans at Twickenham are passionate, loyal, reasonably well-educated and provide a great atmosphere. – Eddie Jones
“It’s one of the greatest rugby grounds in the world. If he (Telfer) doesn’t like that don’t come, simple as that,”
Jones in fact thinks English fans are reserved, and a little too reserved at that.
If I was to generalise as an Australian talking about the English — which is probably not a good thing to do, but I’ll do it anyway — I find the English to be very reserved. The last thing I find them to be is arrogant. I find them to be very polite, reserved people and I find that with the players.
“To me, that is the problem. Maybe football is the same — the players are too reserved.
“The manager comes in and says, ‘You do this, we will play this formation’ and it’s not right for the players but the players accept it because he is the manager.
“Then against Iceland, with 20 minutes to go it’s not working and they’ve got nothing to fall back on.”