WALES No 8 Ryan Jones has given his full backing to under-fire coach Gareth Jenkins and skipper Stephen Jones, pledging the entire squad need to dig themselves out of their current hole.

Newport-born Jones was part of the side that spluttered to Six Nations defeat against Scotland at Murrayfield on Saturday, leaving Wales with the prospect of a battle to avoid the wooden spoon.

And that has led to criticism of Jenkins, despite him being in the job for only nine months, and questions about the decision to hand the captaincy to the Scarlets outside half.

But 25-year-old Jones is fully behind his coach and captain, saying: "Steve has been around for a long, long time and has been instrumental in a lot of the key moments and successes in Welsh rugby in recent times.

"For him to be burdened with the blame for this performance is ridiculous - he is a great leader on and off the pitch.

"And results haven't gone Gareth's way but that doesn't detract from the fact that he's a top coach and a good bloke as well.

"Unfortunately things haven't gone well in his first term but we understand why and there's nobody working harder than him to put it right and help us move on.

"I think it's been an unfair reaction and they have come in for a lot of stick. The only people who are going to get us out of this are the 32 players and the five or six coaches - there is no-one else.

"We have huge belief in ourselves collectively and as individuals, what we have to do is stay tight and don't go down the road of blame culture. Chopping and changing people every campaign just won't work, things just take time."

The way that Wales have been playing has made it a tough few weeks for Jones, who hasn't endured too many sticky patches since making his debut against South Africa in the autumn of 2004.

"It's been difficult because you always dream of it being so different," he said. "When you are growing up as a kid you always won by 50 points.

"But we've had a good honest chat and there are things that need to be addressed. We don't feel we have played well and there is a lot more to come from this team.

"When I first came in it was all rosy but it's important that senior and experienced players stand up, we can't shy away we've plenty more rugby to play and we will have good times again.

"We haven't been as consistent as we want but we are working really hard to put things right, we want to come off with 80,000 people sat in the stadium cheering us."

Next up for Jones, who will be resting a calf injury this weekend rather than turning out for the Ospreys, is the trip to Paris to face the Grand Slam-chasing French.

And he is stressing the importance of attacking if they are to make the journey back with their first win of the campaign under their belts.

He said: "The way to beat France is to go out there and play an attacking game, you can't go out there and try and contain them, we have to throw it all at them and give a good account of ourselves.

"Going to France holds no fear anymore because we do it in Europe and are there a few times a year now and are used to the environment.

"It's going to be tough but Ireland should have beaten them last weekend. It's not the ideal game on the back of two losses but there's no way of getting away from it and we will go there with a full, confident squad."