England coach Jones wary of Big Bad Wolf Hansen

England coach Eddie Jones is wary of accepting compliments from the Big Bad Wolf, known more commonly as New Zealand counterpart Steve Hansen.

Hansen offered his congratulations to Jones after England equalled the All Blacks‘ record of 18 consecutive victories for a tier-one nation by battering Scotland 61-21 in the Six Nations on Saturday.

The record will be England’s alone if they can beat Ireland in Dublin this weekend, which would also see them clinch back-to-back Grand Slams.

Rather than be disappointed that New Zealand, whose own run ended against Ireland in November, may no longer have the accolade Hansen welcomed the competition.

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 live’s Sportsweek, he said: “I’d like to congratulate England on equalling the record. It’s great for rugby because we want competition and games that people want to watch and get excited by.”

But Jones is taking Hansen’s comments with a pinch of salt and likened him to the protagonist in the fairytale ‘Little Red Riding Hood’.

“Hearing Steve Hansen make comments reminds me of Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf dressed up as her grandmother,” Jones told BBC Radio 5 live’s Rugby Union Weekly podcast.

“You’ve always got to be careful of compliments, particularly from an All Blacks coach.”

England may be closing in on history, but world champions New Zealand remain the top-ranked Test team in the world.

And Jones says his team still have some way to go before being at the same level as the All Blacks.

“We’re not the number-one team in the world, the All Blacks are, so we’re not on their level,” he added.

“That’s what we aspire to be and we’ll keep aspiring and working hard and making sure every day we get better, to get to that number one.

“They’ve probably got the ability to have more attacking threats in unstructured play than we do, their ability to convert small opportunities to points is quite outstanding and if you just look at the comparison between the number of tries they’ve scored and the number of tries we’ve scored in the corresponding 18 Tests, they’ve got a substantial advantage in that area.

“But that’s something we’re gradually improving in.”