Ireland boss Joe Schmidt to ignore Eddie Jones' 'grenade' and plays down favourites tag

Joe Schmidt has decided to ignore Eddie Jones claiming Ireland as favourites and not become distracted by the defending champions' head coach's "grenade" of claiming England will be weakened by injury in the NatWest 6 Nations.

England will chase their third consecutive Six Nations title this year, but Jones last week played down his side’s chances.

“I know Eddie is excited about the people he’s got, he’s just not telling you that,” said Schmidt, of Jones downplaying England’s chances.

“It must be on the back of having 12 teams to select from and the eight days he’s had in camp as opposed to us having three.

“I know Eddie from old, and I know he’s going to throw in the odd grenade, and fair play to him for doing it. It keeps us on our toes.

“We’ve got to come up with some clever riposte, but we’re not clever enough to do it well.

“We’ve got 13 players injured, missing some senior guys, like Sean O’Brien, and Jared Payne, pivotal to us the last time we won the Six Nations, and he’s only played once in the last year.

“You can always reflect on who you’re missing. You can reflect on that but you’ve got to focus on who you’ve got.”

The Ireland head coach preferred to side with the opinions of bookmakers.

“Bookies don’t make money by being wrong,” said Schmidt of Jones rating Ireland as tournament favourites.

“You’ve got a team there (England) that’s won 22 out of 23 Test matches over the last two years. They’ve beaten everybody they’ve come up against at some stage.

“As much as we might have been the team that managed to knock them over last year, the year before that they beat us at Twickenham. And they’re back at home at Twickenham when they play us.

“I think you’ve got a number of other teams that will be very competitive so, look, as I say, the bookies don’t make money by being wrong too often.”

Schmidt has also called on tournament organisers to retain the two fallow weeks between fixtures that allow a vital breather as most of the Six Nations sides enter the tournament missing a raft of injured stars.

“I think the fallow weeks are brilliant; that gives you the ability to come up for air and keeps the tournament at the top of the tree,” said Schmidt.

“You’re more likely to have players who aren’t ground down attritionally, and players can be at their best.

“People want to see the best players at their best.”