Motormouth Eddie Jones doesn’t ruffle zen Simon Zebo

You get the sense Simon Zebo would enjoy a bit of back and forth with Eddie Jones, the England head coach who would be a cert for selection if the Lions took a ‘banter coach’ on tour.

They’ve so many others, it might not be long before the role is sponsored by a financial institution looking to engage with millennials, but as far as Zebo is concerned, the only time Jones should be listened to is on the training ground or in the dressing room.

The Aussie, who seems to derive more satisfaction from smart aleck responses than beautifully crafted tries, has already begun to stir things ahead of Saturday’s game in Dublin, where England can set a new world record for consecutive wins.

They’re currently level with New Zealand, on 18 wins, following last weekend’s demolition of Scotland in Twickenham, but Jones says Ireland have an “enormous psychological advantage”.

He also summed up Ireland’s tactics as “kick and clap”, despite — not for the first time — the facts saying otherwise.

England, in fact, have kicked just two times fewer than Ireland in this championship.

Then again, Jones has always been a fan of alternative facts.

He is making England great again, after all.

“I try not to listen to him too much, but from what I’ve seen of Eddie Jones, he’s obviously not afraid to speak his mind,” said Zebo. “He’s new in with England and a fresh voice, a fresh atmosphere and they’re obviously feeding off of him at the moment. He seems to be doing a good job.

“I’d definitely take him more seriously as a coach, I wouldn’t pay too much attention to those comments or whatever he says.

“All coaches seem to say specific things at specific times, whether it’s mind games or whatever it is, but as players we just focus on the opposition and the 15 players who are going to be lining out against us.”

Whatever Eddie says goes, however, with England enjoying an unprecedented run of success. But Zebo insists games are decided by those who play a good game, rather than talk a good game.

“It’s always down to the players,” Zebo said. “There’s the game plan and whatever is said beforehand isn’t of too much importance. The important thing is that the players go out and perform and execute the gameplan, so whoever’s best on the day will prove that in Dublin.”

Since the last World Cup — when Stuart Lancaster lost his job as England head coach, leading to Jones’ appointment — Ireland and England’s fortunes have varied wildly.

Jones has yet to experience defeat in charge of his adopted home, while Ireland, despite beating the southern hemisphere’s big three last year, have a win ratio of precisely 50%.

Such a gap may cause feelings of inferiority ahead of Saturday’s game in Dublin, but Zebo refutes that theory.

“No, we don’t feel like that at all,” Zebo said. “They’ve come a long way, but they weren’t in a great place after the World Cup, they were probably in a worse place than we are now.

“We’ve lost two games [in the Six Nations], but we still have a chance to finish in the top half of the table, we’re hugely excited about that.

“More importantly, we’ve the opportunity to put in a huge performance for ourselves, our fans, and our families.

“We’re not looking at where they are and where they’ve come from — or the same for us — we’re just focusing on beating them, and if we do that, we’ll be in an even better place.”

Schmidt’s men preach the gospel of consistency, so surely England’s run must induce envy?

“Yeah, they’ve been doing really well, they’ve been grinding out games they could have lost, they’ve been in a real impressive vein of form, they’re one of the best teams in the world,” Zebo said.

“They’ve shown that consistently and that’s where we’re trying to get to. We want to be as consistent as the very best, as New Zealand and England are now, we don’t want to have these once off performances, we want to back them up and we’ve proven in the past that we can achieve that.

“We won back-to-back Six Nations, we can back things up. There’s a high expectation around our performance, our past success has brought that on, the most important thing is we try to bring that success back and getting a win this week would be a good start.”