‘Enjoy the play-off’ – England’s Jones hits back at Gatland jibe

Eddie Jones has responded in typically sharp fashion after Wales coach Warren Gatland questioned whether England had played their World Cup final a week early with a stunning victory over champions New Zealand.

Gatland was speaking after Wales had been edged out 19-16 in the second semi-final by South Africa, who will now face England in Yokohama on Saturday in a repeat of the 2007 final.

The Welsh play the All Blacks in the bronze final 24 hours earlier, with Gatland’s last match after 12 years in charge coming against his native New Zealand.

“Well, guys, can you just send my best wishes to Warren to make sure he enjoys the third and fourth place play-off,” England coach Jones told reporters when Gatland’s comments were put to him on Monday.

Meanwhile the Australian, in charge of the Wallabies side that lost to England in the 2003 World Cup final, delivered a boost to Red Rose hopes of a second global crown by declaring Jonny May had recovered well from the dead leg the wing suffered in a superb 19-7 semi-final win over New Zealand.

The Leicester flyer had been a doubt coming into the All Blacks match because of a hamstring injury and played 45 minutes before leaving the field with a fresh fitness problem.

But a smiling Jones insisted Monday: “We had a walk-through this morning and we had to tell Jonny to slow down a bit.

“He’s probably in better condition than he was last week at this stage.”

England captain Owen Farrell also suffered a dead leg during an impressive win but finished the game, albeit his injury saw George Ford took over the goal-kicking duties.

“Owen’s a bit sore but he’ll be fine,” said Jones. “We’ve got a few others carrying bumps and bruises because it was a tough old game.”

Meanwhile Jones said England could continue to lift the mood of the nation by taking attention away from Brexit with a win over the Springboks.

“It’s great — you give the country something to cheer about and with Brexit at the moment they probably need something to cheer about,” Jones said.

“It’s the job of a team to make the country happy and we’ve made the country happy. Not as happy as they can be because there is still a game to go as we’ve said.”

Meanwhile Jones paid tribute to Willi Heinz after the back-up scrum-half saw his dreams of playing in a World Cup final crushed by a tournament-ending hamstring injury suffered against New Zealand.

Jones picked just two specialist scrum-halves in his 31-man squad for Japan.

Ben Spencer arrived in Tokyo on Monday as cover for first-choice number nine Ben Youngs, with the Saracens scrum-half now having just a few days to prepare for a World Cup final.

“It’s tough for Willi, he’s a very well-liked member of the squad and he was in tears in the dressing room,” said Jones.

“But he’s collected himself, he now knows he’s got another role to play for us.”

Jones added: “The great thing is Willi wanted to stay and we wanted him to stay so it wasn’t a hard discussion.

“It’s like when you want to get married mate. If the lady wants to marry you and you offer to marry, it’s a pretty easy conversation.

“He works hard for the team, Ben (Youngs) and him have got a really good relationship and even now he’s already started to mentor Ben Spencer. He’s a really great team man.”

Spencer’s three replacement caps amount to just over 20 minutes of Test rugby in total but Jones said: “Ben has been in and around the squad consistently for the last couple of years so he knows the game, he knows the players.

“We always said to those guys outside the 31 that they need to be ready, and he is ready to go.”

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