Eddie Jones began this weekend by patronising Italy. The Italians had a hideous start to this year's Six Nations, losing to Wales while they shipped 68 points at home to Ireland in round two, triggering the usual existential questions as to whether Italy should be in the competition at all.
Jones said that all of World Rugby should band together and provide them with assistance:
The only thing I would say about that is Italy need to be supported.
If their rugby is not developing as people want then they should be supported by World Rugby and the rest of the tier one countries because they are an important country. It is never just financial – to make a good sporting team you need financial power, you need intellect and you need the desire so you have got to find ways to help them.
A day later, Jones has changed his tune, and is now exceptionally dismissive of them. England saw off the Italian challenge today, winning out 36-15. While England secured a five-try bonus point, they trailed 10-5 at half-time, having been utterly bewildered by Conor O'Shea and Italy's tactics in the first-half. Italy did not compete on the ground, meaning no rucks were formed, meaning there was no offside line formed either. This allowed Italian defenders swarm English attackers and prevent any passes from being tossed out wide.
The Six Nations Youtube channel uploaded a video sketching out these tactics:
The tactic left the English players so bedraggled that Dylan Hartley ended up asking Roman Poite to explain what a ruck is.
Speaking after the game, Eddie Jones said he was not critical of Italy tactics, before panning them. Jones said that what was on show at Twickenham was "not a game of rugby", comparing it to the infamous underarm bowling technique of Trevor Chapelle. You can watch his interview with ITV below:
Here's footage of the Chapelle reference:
In a later radio interview with BBC 5 Live, Jones doubled down on this saying that his side hadn't played rugby today, and that "we might go out and train now".
Conor O'Shea, for his part, stood steadfast:
Conor O'Shea fighting fire with fire in @5liveSport interview. "We didn't come here to roll over and get our tummies tickled."
— Chris Jones BBC (@chjones9) February 26, 2017
Conor O'Shea punching back: "Just because we took people by surprise. What do you want, us to be normal? We can’t be normal. We’re Italy."
— Tom Fordyce (@tomfordyce) February 26, 2017
More O'Shea: "We’re not inventing anything. It’s a tackle. If it’s a tackle, there’s no offside there. We just occupied space."
— Tom Fordyce (@tomfordyce) February 26, 2017
O'Shea on Jones: "He wanted 70 (pts). He wanted to take us to the cleaners. Is that respect? I was delighted when they kicked to the posts"
— Tom Fordyce (@tomfordyce) February 26, 2017
Jones has a supporter in Matt Dawson.
See Also: Watch: Incredible Scenes As England Caught Napping By Italians At Twickenham
