Eddie Jones slams claims from former England player Danny Cipriani

As he prepares for the World Cup, Wallabies coach Eddie Jones has taken aim at a former England player over claims in his new book.

Wallabies coach Eddie Jones says the claims are ‘absurd’. Picture: Chris Hyde/Getty Images

Eddie Jones has called claims from a former England player that the now Wallabies coach acted like a “horny teenager” in a conversation about an off-field relationship “totally absurd” and a “complete fabrication”.

On the eve of the World Cup, former England and Melbourne Rebels playmaker Danny Cipriani made the assertions in extracts from his upcoming autobiography Who Am I? that were published in the UK press.

Cipriani, regarded as unfulfilled talent by many, claimed that at a dinner with Jones in 2016 when he was charge of England, the coach asked him about a TV presenter he had recently broken up with.

“Eddie keeps pecking, like a horny teenager, and in the end I tell him straight, ‘Eddie, I don’t want to talk about this, it’s making me uncomfortable’,” Cirpiani wrote.

But in response, Jones launched a scathing attack on Cipriani and said the claim was preposterous.

“We didn’t have a close relationship, so I’m hardly going to engage in a conversation like that with him,” Jones told the Daily Mail.

“To be quite frank, it’s a complete fabrication. We didn’t select him. When players don’t get selected, they always have an axe to grind. We know that.

Former England international Danny Cipriani claims Eddie Jones was like a ‘horny teenager’.

“He’s selling a book, so nothing surprises me when players want to sell books. It’s absurd. It’s almost too absurd to talk about.

“I think it’s very sad for him that he feels he has to make something up to sell his book.”

Jones said he rarely, if ever, engaged with any of the players he coached about their off-field relationships and certainly not in the manner Cipriani claimed.

“It’s just f--king nonsense. If anyone is stupid enough to pay attention to it, then good luck to them,” he said.

“That’s hardly the sort of language I would use. It’s not how I speak to players. In all the years I’ve coached, there would be very few conversations like that with players.

“It’s not to say I haven’t had a conversation like that, but there would have been very few – and certainly not with Cipriani.

“I’ve learnt to keep an appropriate distance. You don’t coach for the amount of time that I’ve coached without keeping the appropriate distance.

“I get criticised for being too hard – now someone is trying to make out that I’m too familiar with the players. Work out what you want me to be.”

Cipriani was capped just 16 times by England and also played with the Rebels in the Super Rugby competition in 2011.