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

9:40am, 26 November 2020

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.

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.

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.”

All the leading Test nations, including the All Blacks, have tweeted tributes following the untimely loss of the French great at the age of just 48 ?https://t.co/DKsfl6Xb4s
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) November 24, 2020

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.”

Nobody will upstage @LosPumas' passion on Saturday – but do they really have the manpower to make mass changes and still to do the double over the @AllBlacks? #ARGvNZL #TriNations #AllBlacks #LosPumas https://t.co/yaXBGKu8l0
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) November 26, 2020