Crash: Wallabies, Jones failed to learn from history in coaching debacle

Eddie Jones’ love for mind games was always present in first venture as Wallabies coach, but in his second venture, the master of the mind games played himself, writes Robert Craddock.

SAINT-ETIENNE, FRANCE – OCTOBER 07: Head Coach, Eddie Jones looks on during a Wallabies training session, at Stade Roger Baudras on October 07, 2023 in Saint-Etienne, France. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

A few weeks ago when the rugby world was trying to make sense of Eddie Jones, an old story surfaced about the day he left a young Matt Giteau staring silently at the ceiling of his hotel room.

Decorated former Test back Giteau claimed in a podcast Jones “scared him like a headmaster’’ and Giteau was only too keen to follow instructions when the coach told him at a morning training not to have a beer for his birthday that night.

But, that night at the bar, Jones bizarrely put a Corona in front of Giteau and urged him to have a drink.

Giteau cannot recall whether he took a sip or not but he does remember being “frazzled’’ when he returned to his room as he pondered what on earth the coach was really thinking.

The mystery has never been solved and many rugby officials now relate to Giteau’s confusion.

Mind games. They can be a great tactical weapon but the problem for Jones is that he has used them to such an extreme degree in his fall from grace with Australian rugby that he appears to have deep fried the most complex mind of all … his own.

Eddie Jones and Matt Giteau in 2003.

One week it’s the media to blame for Australian rugby’s woes. Then it’s his fault. Then it’s the system. He is speaking to Japan. He’s not spoken to Japan. Now he’s gone.

What is certain is that Jones and Australia failed to learn from history … and have now been brutally condemned by it in a year in which the coach has moved in so many directions he could hide behind a cork screw.

One group of people unsurprised by Jones’ fate are Queensland Reds officials who were in charge when Jones signed to coach the Reds just one month after being sacked by Australia in 2005.

Jones headed to Saracens for a consultancy role in England before quickstepping over to the Reds for the most disastrous – correction, second most disastrous – coaching stint of his career.

Reds officials reckoned he clearly had not got over his axing as national coach when he joined them for a steaming cow pad of a season in which they finished dead last and were beaten 92-3 in their final game against the Bulls which created an instant firestorm.

Reds officials see strong echoes of the 2007 Eddie in this World Cup, the lesson being that the termination of a major coaching stint often takes a huge and vastly underestimated emotional toll on the person frogmarched out the door.

Sacked by England last December after a turbulent seven year stint, Jones was hired by Australia just six weeks later to put the floaties beneath its sinking ship.

Jones resigned from his position on Sunday. Picture: NCA NewsWIRE / Monique Harmer

At age 63, he was expected to instantly compartmentalise the grief-exhaustion-embarrassment of his England sacking and somehow get his head around not simply being the coach and selector of the Wallabies but the key face in all the television commercials … and while you are there could you get around Sydney and talk to grassroots coaches.

One minute he was plotting to bring Australia down. The next he was the smiling face of the entire Australian rugby system. Ridiculous.

Talk about desperate dice rolling …

One theory about Jones’ demise with the Wallabies was that when he got through the front door and saw how poor a state the ship was in it hit him hard and he knew early he was in desperate straits.

Some officials believe he has been talking to Japan since the Wallabies pre-World Cup camp in Darwin.

Despite saying mate more than 30 times at a press conference he lacked big name mates as he tumbled into the giant black hole.

Originally published as Crash: Wallabies, Jones failed to learn from history in coaching debacle