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Eddie Jones salutes the late Dominici and Maradona, lauds Nigel Owens' weekend milestone

(Photo by Liewig Christian/Corbis via Getty Images)

England boss Eddie Jones has offered his condolences to the family of the late Christophe Dominici, spoken about the impact the late footballer Diego Maradona, and paid tribute to rugby referee Nigel Owens who this weekend becomes the first referee to have taken charge of 100 Test matches.  

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Jones began his latest England team selection media conference with an opening statement on late France great Dominici, who tragically took his own life on Tuesday at the age of 48. 

He followed it with reference to Owens’ refereeing milestone and then took a question on Maradona, the legendary Argentina footballer who passed away on Wednesday at the age of 60.

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Eddie Jones previews England’s Nations Cup trip to Wales

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Eddie Jones previews England’s Nations Cup trip to Wales

“I would just like to send my condolences to the Dominici family from England rugby,” began Jones. “He was a fantastic player. I remember him vividly, a will-o’-the-wisp type player who played superbly for France. We feel for the family. 

“On a brighter note, I would just like to send congratulations to Nigel Owens on his 100 Test match. It’s a great achievement for a referee and he has done it will a lot of colour, a lot of humour and certainly added to the game so congratulations Nigel. We look forward to having you again, mate.”

Switching to Maradona, Jones added: “He’s one of those guys who captures the sports world. He was an incredible player. I can remember watching him closely in that ’86 World Cup and the influence he had on the game.

“It’s one of those great sports stories. Obviously a lot of tragedy in it as well, but for a guy to come from the slums of Argentina to be the best player in the world and provide such entertainment for a long period of time and then unfortunately towards the end it was a difficult life for him but yeah, everyone got great memories from him.”  

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RedWarriors 6 hours ago
'Not a normal rugby team' - The Leinster flex that floored Jake White

I was actually at the match. Leinster were the outstanding team in the league stage. Leinster’s squad depth meant the Bulls could only nick a late win in Pretoria against an understrenght Leinster. Simple put, Leinster are significantly better this year compared to last. The Dublin match last year was a big win by Leinster. Yes they won by a point in the RDS three years ago but thats not relevant to yesterday.

As Leinster are such a dangerous team, it forces an opponent to focus on a strategy to undermine them and that way get their game on the pitch. Leinster allowed that against Northampton. But that was not going to happen again. The Bulls attack in last 10 minutes of the first half was as savage as anything in the URC this year. Yet Leinsters coaching plan repelled them allied to savage commitment from the players. The defense was outstanding, pressure at breakdown outstanding. Leinster did not win the European cup but arguably at their best this year no other European team could reach that height. They reached that yesterday. Leinster completely removed Bulls ability to hurt them.

And Croke Park….100 years ago the Brits fired machine guns into spectators injuring 100s and killing loads. No Irish team ever performs badly there. Same with Irish supporters. Opposition players might as well be Brit Tommies with machine guns.

I think a great Leinster team, played a great game plan, to the height of their power in a horrible stadium for opponents. If Bulls score before half time they were back in the match. They went down, but they went down fighting.

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