Eddie Jones takes ‘full responsibility’ after Australia beaten by Wales at Rugby World Cup

Australian coach Eddie Jones said he remains proud of his players despite their heavy defeat to Wales and admits his coaching has not been good enough; Wallabies face their first pool crash at the Rugby World Cup

Australian coach Eddie Jones took full responsibility for his side’s 40-6 defeat to Wales on Sunday as the Wallabies looked set to exit the Rugby World Cup.

Wales recorded a 40–6 victory to qualify for the quarter-finals, giving Australia the opportunity to exit the World Cup in the pool stages for the first time in their history.

“It’s all on me, I take full responsibility for it,” Jones said ITV. My coaching has not been good enough. I don’t have to worry about the future, I just have to worry about the match against Portugal.

“I have a contract but at the end of the World Cup they will obviously do a performance assessment and mine will be assessed and at the moment it is not good enough.

“I have nothing but the utmost respect for our players. They are a nice group of young kids and they are learning their trade and these kinds of experiences sometimes form the basis for a team.

“As hard as it is to go through right now, sometimes you have to go through it to create the spirit and thinking you need to be the team you want to be. Our players have been fantastic.”

Jones added: “Australia has always been an up and down situation and we are going through a really bad patch at the moment and we just have to fight our way out of it. The opportunity is there to do that.”

Last week, Fiji recorded a shock 22-15 win against Australia, forcing Jones to admit he could lose his job after the World Cup.

The Wallabies’ loss to Wales marked their seventh defeat in eight Tests this year.

Meanwhile, Wales have reached their fourth consecutive World Cup quarter-final under Warren Gatland as head coach and celebrated one of their best performances against Australia.

Gatland: Life is about what you earn, and we deserved to win

Wales head coach Warren Gatland told ITV Sport…

“It was a pretty good performance. Their lines need to improve a bit, but that’s okay. Life is about what you earn and we deserved to win and I am happy with their performance.

“In the end we scored three tries and the message at the end was to go for the bonus point, but you can’t be too greedy.

On Gareth Davies, Gatland said: “He’s a fantastic individual. He’s come back and shown how he can defend and what he can do in the game and we’re lucky to have two quality nines, one more experienced than the other .” Tomos (Williams) came on and gave us some spice.

“We’re really lucky and we’ve worked really hard.”

North: It was a dominant performance and the boys are enthusiastic

Wales center George North told ITV Sport…

“We are getting closer to the performance we know we can deliver. There’s still some clearing to do, but after three wins from three in the group stages we still have a big game to go, but the boys are on cloud nine.

“Great effort from the 23 and 33-man squad all week. After the match against Portugal we continued and today’s result showed. It was a dominant performance and the boys are happy with it.

“It’s a huge effort from the start, we get what you put into it and the boys have put in from minute one.

“After Fiji I was harsh on us and said we had to clean up a lot, and we did that, but to do that for an Australian team is a good achievement in our book.”

What’s next?

Australia will take on Portugal in their Pool C match at Stade Geoffroy-Guicard in Saint-Étienne, France on Sunday, October 1 (kick-off 4.45pm BST).

Wales are in action against Georgia at the Stade de la Beaujoire in Nantes, France on Saturday 7 October (kick-off 2pm BST).