No panic for Welsh captain Jones

Stephen Jones insists the Wales captaincy is not having an adverse effect on his performance despite leading his side to back-to-back defeats in their opening RBS 6 Nations Championship matches.

A 19-9 loss to Ireland was followed on Saturday by a 21-9 reversal to Scotland, leaving Wales pointless and at the foot of the championship table with Italy.

Many supporters in Wales have pointed the finger at Jones’ captaincy as a reason for the problems, but the British Lion is adamant his own game is not being tarnished by being skipper.

“Being captain is not affecting my performance. It’s a great honour to be Welsh captain,” he said.

“I’m fortunate we have a lot of experienced players in the side like Duncan Jones and Martyn Williams which makes my job a lot easier.”

But Jones admitted Wales’ tryless effort at Murrayfield was unacceptable.

“We have got to look at ourselves,” he admitted. “Our performance was not good. We were outplayed by Scotland. We have to improve our game and we know we can play better than that. We have just got to (play better), especially with France next up.

“We are bitterly disappointed to have lost our first two matches.”

Meanwhile, wing Mark Jones has defended Wales coach Gareth Jenkins, who like Stephen Jones has found himself in the firing line of critics.

There were many supporters in Wales yesterday who contacted radio and TV stations calling for Jenkins’ head.

“Gareth Jenkins is a hugely experienced coach and somebody who the rest of the players have a huge amount of respect for,” insisted Jones.

“He is very down to earth. He has come under pressures before at club and regional level and dealt with them very well. I think he has always answered his critics. So from our point of view we have got full confidence in the coaching staff and what they are trying to achieve.

“It’s inevitable criticism is levelled at the coach. Coaches are in charge of the team and when they lose the management comes under pressure. That’s the same in any sport throughout the world. The coaches prepared us excellently for the week’s challenges but unfortunately we as players did not go out there and play to our full potential.

“I’m sure that if we continue to work together we will get it right and have plenty to think about before the end of this Six Nations.”

But Jones admitted there were flaws in Wales’ offensive approach.

“It wasn’t the greatest performance by ourselves and it didn’t make it a memorable occasion,” he said. It was a difficult day all round. We showed great intensity in our defensive game but we just did not take that into our attacking phases.

“Scotland were asking us a lot of questions defensively and I thought we answered them in terms of not conceding tries. But we didn’t pose Scotland any questions, which is something we had talked about doing all week.

“After losing another game people have got great expectations of the team and rightly so what with the quality within the side. We share those frustrations. We are hugely frustrated because we viewed this as an opportunity to kick-start our championship. But we are still optimistic. We have got three very difficult games to come but we hold no fears for those teams.”