Eddie Jones declared his England charges ready to claim the Grand Slam in Paris after watching them hold off a resurgent Wales side at Twickenham.

 

 

 

Despite Jones seeing his men suffer the full-force of this Welsh onslaught, he was proud of the turnaround from England's World Cup defeat and says a first Red Rose Grand Slam since 2003 is now achievable.

"The Grand Slam is a reality, so we can't wait to get to Paris next week and do the business, we have to prepare well and we will work out what we have to do after the Scotland France game," the Australian said.

"The Grand Slam is there for us to take.

"For France, obviously it will be there last game, they are going to play with a lot of passion and a lot of pride, but if we play well and prepare well, I think we are good enough to do the business."

Jones made a raft of changes in the second-half - one of which saw Manu Tuilagi make his first England appearance since June 2014 - and he acknowledged the number of changes may have handed Gatland's outfit the initiative.

Nevertheless, the blueprint was laid for Jones in a first half performance full of power, verve and physicality.
He said: "There's one game for 60 minutes and then another game for 20 minutes, lucky we got enough points in the first 60 minutes, because the last 20 minutes all belonged to Wales.

"It was a funny performance by us, at times today we were immaculate - you know really good, really sharp, really intense, but then we just dropped off a little bit at the end.

"We made a number of changes on purpose to test players and to test the strength of the team and maybe those changes didn't work."