EDDIE JONES HAS bristled at the suggestion that England will target Johnny Sexton at Twickenham on Saturday.
Speaking at England’s base at Pennyhill Park, the team’s head coach, unprompted, mentioned Sexton’s recent whiplash injury suffered during Ireland’s 10-9 defeat against France.
“Sexton is an interesting one,” said Jones.
“They’ve talked about him having whiplash injury, which is not a great thing to talk about. I’m sure his mother and father would be worried about that. Hopefully, the lad’s alright on Saturday to play.”
Sexton suffered whiplash late in the contest at the Stade de France following some heavy treatment from a number of French players. The Leinster number 10 was also forced from the field during Ireland’s 16-16 draw with Wales at the Aviva Stadium in the opening round.
Sexton was stood down for 12 weeks in 2014 after he suffered four concussions in the space of a year.
When asked if England would target Sexton in the same manner that France did in Paris, a clearly agitated Jones replied: “I don’t know about France, mate. Go and ask the French coach.”
Jones was pressed for clarification once more before replying: “We target players all the time; that’s part of rugby is it not?
“I didn’t know teams had any special requirements. Is there some sort of special law is there?
“Well, there’s 15 players out there? Are we supposed to not run at one player? Hang on, hang on he’s got a red dot on his head, we don’t run at him.
“We are not going to run at their strongest defenders, we’ll always run at their weakest. I’m not saying Sexton is a weak defender. Maybe France did. We’re going to be targeting players in the Ireland side.
“We want to win and you win a game of rugby by attacking their weak points and to say that’s unfair is just ridiculous.”
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