Eddie Jones: We don’t need curfew
The FA is conducting an investigation’ into events involving England captain Wayne Rooney and any of its staff after “inappropriate” images from The Grove Hotel on Saturday night.
Rooney has apologised and the FA has confirmed that overnight free time, which has been in place for a number of years, will now be reviewed.
When asked what a curfew would mean for his squad, Jones said: “Well, then I’ve got the wrong captain and the wrong vice-captains. The time we have to have a curfew is the time we don’t have a leadership group within the team.
“The players are adults. Most of the players have got their own families. After the game, they’ll go back to the hotel, they’ll have a few beers and they’ll decide when they go to bed.
“We’ve got a great leadership group within the team so we don’t need to have curfews. I generally like the players to set the regulations, because then it’s self-policing.
“I’ve had teams that have set curfews. Most teams I’ve had have never set curfews.
“They are professional sportsmen who have the privilege of playing for England.
“They have to do everything to be at their best for England. If they do anything outside of that, then they don’t want to play for England.”
England captain Dylan Hartley echoed his coach’s view. “We police ourselves and we trust individuals to make the right decisions. That is how our team operate,” Hartley said.
“If you’re alluding to what we are going to do after the Fiji game at the weekend, we have got another Test match to get ready for.
“We just trust the guys to do the right thing.”
England have taken the highly unusual step of delaying their team announcement for tomorrow’s clash with Fiji by 24 hours as they monitor the fitness of a trio of players.
In a break with established protocol, the starting XV and replacements bench will be named on the eve of the second autumn international at Twickenham as Billy Vunipola, Nathan Hughes and Elliot Daly battle to prove their availability. Mystery shrouds the nature of their ailments — Vunipola has ‘upper body soreness’, Hughes is struggling with a ‘lower leg injury’ and Daly has an ‘upper body injury’.
World Rugby has confirmed that England have not broken any regulations in the postponement, although from January a recently-ratified rule stating team announcements must be undertaken 48 hours before kick takes effect.
Jones is unrepentant over the delay. “I don’t have to discuss it with Fiji. There’s no regulation,” Jones said.
“We’re not looking for an advantage. There are some serious injury concerns that we have.
“People have named teams and then changed before kick-off but we don’t have a history of doing that. I don’t have a history of playing ducks and drakes with selection.”
England are 1/150 favourites to extend their flawless record against Fiji to seven matches and Jones intends victory to be delivered by “boring them to death”.
“You just don’t want to open the game up too much. You go anywhere in Fiji and kids are playing with the ball, they are throwing it around.
“At the age of 10 kids can throw 15-metre torpedo passes through their legs, so we’ve got to play a structured, controlled, positive game.”
Former Gloucester flanker Akapusi Qera will lead a Fiji side packed with European-based players at Twickenham.
M Talebula (Bordeaux); B Masilevu (Brive), A Tikoirotuma (London Irish), A Vulivuli (Racing 92), N Nadolo (Montpellier); J Matavesi (Ospreys), S Vularika (Suva); C Ma’afu (Northampton), S Koto (Macon), M Saulo (Toulon), A Ratuniyawara (Agen), L Nakarawa (Racing 92), D Waqaniburotu (Brive), P Yato (Clermont Auvergne), A Qera (Montpellier).
