By Mitch Philips
LONDON (Reuters) – Eddie Jones, strangely optimistic, said he believed England played very well at Twickenham on Sunday, but paid a heavy price for a series of mistakes and poor decisions as Argentina claimed a remarkable 30-29 victory.
Few of the 80,000 soaked spectators are likely to have left in such a positive mood after England struggled to turn dominant ownership into transparent opportunities, scoring good attempts in each half via Joe Cokanasiga and Jack van Poortvliet.
He hit hard through 10 consequences, six of which Emiliano Boffelli converted into points, as he also scored a check out and secured a conversion: England were never able to take the lead despite a 16-12 lead at halftime.
“It was a frustrating game. We played very well, but we made some elementary mistakes and individual mistakes that kept them in the game,” Jones told reporters.
“We’ve done enough smart things, but we’ve done some stupid things and mistakes come from looking too hard. We want to fix a little bit, but we’ve made enough line breaks to win maybe two games. “
Jones said he believes referees have an increasing influence on matches, with “most of the moves ending in a penalty” and the result is players do too much, too soon when they have possession.
“It was an intermittent game, but there were actually big structural issues with our game,” he said. “I think if we play this game a hundred times, the result will not be the same. “
“I feel like the team came out and played the way they were looking to play. But we made stupid mistakes, we can replace those things quite easily. I’m not sitting here thinking we have very big upheavals, to the max. “part, we rule the game.
Michael Cheika was overjoyed when his Argentine side ended a 10-game losing streak to England and earned their first win at Twickenham since 2006.
“He’s smart, tense too,” said Cheika, who stepped down as Australia’s coach after losing to England in the quarterfinals of the 2019 World Cup.
“I actually liked how the guys had a really smart attitude during the week. None of them had won here before, so it was about giving them that intellectual aspect that goes with strategy and tactics. here
The two will meet in their opening match of next year’s World Cup, but Cheika downplayed the relevance of today’s result to that match.
“I’m not very attached to the concept of setting scores: each and every game is played on its merits,” he said. “Maybe a little bit from a confidence standpoint for us, but it’s going to be a completely different game. “in 10 months. “
Argentina entered the game on a three-match losing streak following back-to-back wins over Australia and New Zealand in August and Jones said his players had learned to run.
“We weren’t penalized as much as South Africa,” he said. The players took on the duty of decisions and I still think we were penalised too much today, it was much better. “
(Reporting via Mitch Phillips, editing via Christian Radnedge)
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