'Madness' to fire Eddie Jones

SPOTLIGHT: England lock George Kruis has insisted it would be 'madness' to get rid of Eddie Jones as the national team's head coach.

Jones' future has been highly debated following England's horrendous Six Nations campaign.

The 2020 Six Nations Champions ended this season in fifth place - equalling their previous worst finish of 2018 - which was also under the guidance of Jones.

As a result, the 61-year-old Australian’s position as England head coach is under review from the Rugby Football Union Chief Executive Bill Sweeney revealed in March.

Jones, the best-paid coach in world rugby, agreed to a contract extension with the RFU through to the 2023 World Cup last April.

The deal, however, is understood to contain a break clause.

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Many pundits and experts, including Sir Clive Woodward, want to see Jones shown for the exit door.

However, despite the disappointing tournament, Jones boasts a win ratio of 77 percent – the highest of any England coach, which will count in his favour.

"It would be madness to fire Eddie," Kruis told reporters.

"He is a ridiculously good coach.

"He has the respect of the team and in the end, that's the main thing that matters.

"I think media does a good job of hyping up a situation and also making a situation seem worse than what it actually is."

He added: "The good thing about Eddie is that he is a coach that always wants to learn and is always looking to improve and you can see that in his work rate.

"Eddie is always in touch with other coaches, psychologists and even learning from other sports codes.

"Thus in my opinion it will madness."

There have been a number of names that have garnered a lot of attention in the race to replace Jones, including Crusaders coach Scott Robertson.

The RFU expects their debrief to end in mid-April.