Eddie Jones relishing his toughest challenge yet - but will England's players respond?

England head into their clash with Ireland on Saturday with a point to prove after the side's worst run under Jones

'It’s the best time in rugby when you’re under the pump and you’ve got to produce' (Getty)

Eddie Jones has been here before – many times, in fact. “At the Brumbies, we lost the first three games of the season. With South Africa in 2007, we lost three of the four Tri Nations games before the World Cup. When I was with Australia we got beaten by 50 points by New Zealand, six months before the World Cup.”

On first reading it’s nothing to brag about, and it also makes England’s current blip seem rather regulatory. But make no bones about it, England are in a spot of bother and the last week has been the toughest of Jones’ reign since he took the most pressurised job in world rugby.

“All these periods are sent to test you and you learn from it, and become a stronger team,” he said on Thursday, having had to deal with back-to-back defeats and questions of morality after bringing in Marius van der Westhuizen – this weekend’s assistant referee – to help with their breakdown problems, while making apology for offensive remarks he made about Ireland and Wales last July during a business conference.

As seven days go, they don’t come more turbulent, but Jones admits that this is why unions pay the big bucks for coaches like him. “I love it mate, this is what we get paid for as coaches,” he said. “It’s the best time in rugby when you’re under the pump and you’ve got to produce, and the team feels the same way.”

If Jones is saying the right things to move on from this week’s unwelcome scandal, the players need to start doing the right things. Any hope of a response from the Calcutta Cup defeat in Scotland last month went out the window when England were beaten by France, and certain players have paid the price. Dan Cole, Joe Launchbury, Danny Care and George Ford are dropped, a quartet of players who were all singled out for criticism in Paris last weekend. They remain in the match-day squad, but the message is clear: Jones will no longer stand for sub-par performances.

“Selection always has to be a reflection of performance,” he explained. “Always has to be because it is a merit-based process. So if performance isn’t as good, selection has to change.”

In dropping Cole, Launchbury, Care and Ford – Jamie George is replaced by fit-again Dylan Hartley while Courtney Lawes and Nathan Hughes miss out through injury – Jones has removed 255 international caps from his starting line-up and replaced them with just 102 in Kyle Sinckler, George Kruis, Richard Wigglesworth and Jonathan Joseph.

Kyle Sinckler has been named in England’s starting XV (Getty)

But it is also a move to try and find some balance in the squad. England were accused of “not wanting” the win against Scotland as much as the Auld Enemy did against them, and were said to have “not turned up” against France last time out. Yet Jones disagrees, and believes that the opposite applies – they have been guilty in wanting it too much.

He said: “You don’t understand what the Six Nations is until you’re really in it and the emotional part of the game is enormous in the Six Nations – probably more than any other tournament I’ve experienced, and your ability to get that right and not to get over-aroused, not to be under-aroused, to be at the right arousal level, and again I think back to Scotland we were probably over-aroused and sometimes it looks like lethargy, and again that was my responsibility, I got it wrong.

“So for this game it’s important we get it right and I think it’s building up nicely. There’s a peak arousal state that you want to be in.

“I’m never convinced because we haven’t got robots, we’ve got human beings, but I think we’re moving towards the right arousal state.”

Jones said he liked the pressure of his job (Getty)

While Jones was busy discussing the problems that he has on his hands, his counterpart, Joe Schmidt, was addressing questions of his own that largely centred around Jones’ comments and the use of Van der Westhuizen this week. The South African official was brought into the England camp following a request to World Rugby to have an official present during training.

“That is a bit of a surprise,” said Schmidt. “I’m sure in retrospect people are probably thinking it’s not the best thing to do. I know Marius and I would have no hesitation in standing by his integrity.

“I don’t think it will affect his decision making and we’ll stand by him as an official on Saturday.”

Jones hit back at anyone who questioned their use of Van der Westhuizen who was subsequently removed from the fixture by World Rugby.

“We have a different referee in each week,” Jones said. “We go to World Rugby if it’s relevant and ask World Rugby to provide a referee. We do it by the book. I can show you the emails if you like. I’m happy to share them. That’s the way it’s done in World Rugby.

“So I don’t understand what all the hullabaloo is about. We did that in November, we asked for Southern Hemisphere refs, because we want different sorts of referees. As much as we like Wayne Barnes, and I love him, he’s a great referee, he’s still from England and we want someone to come in who’s got a different thought process on the game and therefore the players have to react to how he’s refereeing. We’ve had Glen Jackson previously, we’ve his Nick Berry in and now we’ve got Marius, because we want the players to learn about how to adapt to the different sorts of referees.”

Following the controversy however Van der Westhuizen will be absent come Saturday's crunch tie.

"Marius should not have been involved given that he was a member of the match official team for the weekend's match," the sport's governing body said in a statement while accepting responsibility for what it called an "oversight".

"Marius is an outstanding talent with a big international future and both he and his employer SARU (South African Rugby Union) fully support the decision," the statement added.

But all the controversy that has dogged this week is part and parcel of what makes England vs Ireland encounters so big. Every little controversy is blown up as big as possible, every word scrutinised and every selection put under the magnifying glass. And while Jones lives for these moments, it’s time to see if his players do too.