Eddie Jones is adamant that his Wallabies side will come right despite another loss on Sunday to France, who were on the right side of the 41-17 scoreline.
The result means that since Jones has returned to the Australia the team has now lost five games on the bounce.
Australia showed small pockets of what they could do but were ultimately blown away by a French outfit in fine fettle ahead of a home Rugby World Cup.
“It’s going to come”
The veteran coach insists he is not running from the fact that the results have not been good but believes the team will get it right at some point.
“The results haven’t been good. It hasn’t been good enough,” Jones said. “I’m not hiding away from that but we do have a longer-term plan in terms of the World Cup and that’s what we’re here for. We’d like to have a better win-loss record.
“Within the camp we have a fair bit of confidence. We enjoyed being part of the party tonight but in terms of what we want to do for the World Cup, in particular our first game, we probably did a lot of good things.
“We’ve got to get better at converting territory to points. We’re not a bad team but we’re not a good team yet. We’re going through the process of becoming a good team. We’ve got to keep believing and working hard and it’ll come.
“It might be in two weeks’ time against Georgia. It might be [in] three weeks against Fiji. It might be [in] four weeks against Wales. It might be [in] five weeks against Portugal. We don’t know when it’s going to come.”
Positives
France have become renowned for their power game which includes their scrum prowess but the Wallabies stood up to that battle much to the delight of Jones who also saw some other positives.
“I think our set-piece [improved],” Jones said. “Our scrum probably finished on top and the lineout was good. I thought the way we were able to negate France’s defence was pretty good. We scored three good tries. I like the way the players kept fighting. I really enjoyed that. They were red-hot in the second half. Every bounce went their way.”
Jones defended his young fly-half Carter Gordon who missed four kicks at goal on the night.
“All we can do is work with the young kid,” Jones said. “We’ve got young kids in this team. We’re backing them and he’ll get better.”
The coach also took a moment to praise league convert Suliasi Vunivalu, who impressed in the France Test, and claimed that he is ready for Test rugby.
“At Super Rugby level, he couldn’t blow a candle out,” Jones said. “At Test level, he’s scored one good try and could have scored a couple more. He looks like he’s ready to play at the highest level.”
READ MORE: France v Australia: Five takeaways from Les Bleus’ impressive win in final World Cup warm-up hit-out
The article Eddie Jones hunts for a silver lining after another Australian defeat appeared first on Planetrugby.com.
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