Jones VS WRU

What began as some harmless banter between Eddie Jones, Warren Gatland and the Welsh Rugby Union has turned into all out verbal warfare.

Jones has accused Wales of deliberately attempting to wreck England's Grand Slam bid. The coach reacted furiously to the WRU's decision to publicly object to Joe Marler being cleared of verbally abusing their prop Samson Lee last weekend. "... they don't know whether they're Arthur or Martha," Jones said.

"Everyone is keen for England not to win the Grand Slam, let's be real about it. Wales will be happy if we don't win the Grand Slam and they'll do anything to upset us in our preparation. Of course that's the case. It's as simple as that.

"Why else would they do it? The whole thing has been dealt with. Once a decision has been made, you get on with it. You don't say the decision is wrong, you have to get on with it. Wales have decided not to do that and there's only one reason for that."

Six Nations Rugby declared that not further disciplinary action would be taken against Marler yesterday morning and the WRU responded with a written statement. 

"We are surprised by the decision of the Six Nations disciplinary hearing," the WRU statement read. "We stand by our belief that there is no place for the use of racist language in sport." 

Wales Head Coach Warren Gatland has since done an about face on his opinion of the incident. On Tuesday, Gatland stated that the exchange was "just a bit of banter". He has since released a statement saying: "I don't condone racism of any kind. I apologise for any offence my use of the word banter may have caused." 

Jones' stance on the whole situation is undeniably clear:

"If you look at the Wales statement from Wednesday, they don't know whether they're Arthur or Martha," Jones said. "At one point on Wednesday they didn't [think it was racist] and now they do. They're allowed to do that.

"As I said on Monday, we've let the disciplinary process run its course. The findings have been made and we just run with those findings.

"I spoke to Joe about the situation and said it was inappropriate. We're not interested in controlling social media or saying what's right and what's wrong.

"There's been a decision made and we'll run with that decision. That's why we have these committees. I've said what I have to say on it. We have got a Grand Slam in front of us. A Grand Slam is much more interesting than something that happened seven days ago that's been well and truly discussed."