Wallabies set to face Eddie Jones’ Japan in 2025 in first showdown since Rugby World Cup debacle

Eddie Jones’ split from Rugby Australia and the Wallabies after the disastrous 2023 World Cup campaign was as acrimonious as it comes. Now, they’re about to throw down once again.

The Wallabies are on a collision course with their former head coach Eddie Jones as part of a busy calendar for 2025 that will include revisiting the nightmare of the 2023 World Cup.

Still to be signed off, rugby officials have been holding talks about taking the Wallabies to Japan as part of a money-spinning stopover on their 2025 Spring Tour to the northern hemisphere.

That will mean coming face-to-face with the divisive Jones, who quit the Wallabies and signed a new job in the land of the rising just six weeks after overseeing Australia’s worst World Cup campaign ever at France in 2023.

Months before Jones jumped ship, Rugby Australia signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Japan to build stronger relations between the unions, including staging more frequent Tests against each other after squaring off just six times since their inaugural meeting in 1975.

Eddie Jones was named as Japan’s new head coach on December 13, six weeks after the Australian quit the Wallabies following their dismal showing at the World Cup. Picture: AFP

That partnership remains rock solid despite allegations the Japanese formally interviewed Jones for the national coaching job after the agreement with Rugby Australia had been signed and while he was preparing the Wallabies for the World Cup.

Both Jones and Japan deny this was the case, even after he quit the Wallabies and signed on as Japan coach.

This masthead can also reveal the Wallabies are looking at breaking a 125-year tradition by playing a warm-up Test match before hosting the British and Irish Lions next year.

While the Lions will play six warm up matches before the first of their three Tests against Wallabies, including a game against Argentina in Dublin before heading Down Under, the Australians currently have no practice matches scheduled.

They Wallabies have never played a warm-up match before taking on the Lions - who first visited Australia in 1899 - but are planning an exception for 2025, with Fiji looming as the most likely opponent.

Once regarded as easybeats for the Wallabies, Fiji are a dangerous opponent, currently ranked ninth in the world, one place ahead of the Australians.

The last time they met was at the 2023 World Cup when the unpredictable Pacific Islanders famously upset Jones’ out of sorts Australian team in the pool stage at the 2023 World Cup.

Fiji went on to qualify for the quarter-finals, while the Aussies bowed out before the knockout stage for the first time and Jones departed shortly after.

Originally published as Wallabies set to face Eddie Jones’ Japan in 2025 in first showdown since Rugby World Cup debacle