Rugby World Cup: Wallabies coach Eddie Jones makes bizarre rant at journalists in failed bid at deflection
Eddie Jones reckons the media have played a big role in why Rugby is at the bottom of the barrel in Australian sport. But the truth is a little more complicated, writes Jamie Pandaram.
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Australian rugby journalists are a disgrace and need to be better trained in how to ask questions.
Wallabies coach Eddie Jones was right when he said at his departing media call at Sydney Airport on Thursday, before the team headed to France for their World Cup campaign, that it was the “worst press conference I’ve ever had”.
“Give yourselves an uppercut boys,” Jones said, before his Akubra adorned head spun round and he was headed for the exit terminal.
Where were the balloons and streamers? The signs reading: “Keep Bill safe on the flight home”?
Instead, Jones was peppered with questions about why his attack coach, Brad Davis, suddenly quit and was not travelling to the World Cup.
It’s standard practice for key members of coaching staff to withdraw on the eve of a tournament. Nothing to see there.
Davis has left for “family reasons” but has already agreed to join Les Kiss at Queensland Reds. Jones said his coaching staff would be even better without Davis.
The pesky reporters asked Jones why star playmaker Quade Cooper had not returned any phone calls or messages since being left out of his squad.
And why former captain Michael Hooper, also left out of the travelling pack, had to wait until late in the evening to receive the call from Jones that he wasn’t being picked.
“If the players are unhappy about the selection process so be it,” Jones said.
“We’re moving on to a new young squad who are going to take Australian rugby forward. What we’ve had here over the last eight years hasn’t been good enough. I’m disappointed for players but all I can do is ring them.
“If they don’t take the phone call, you can’t talk to them. What do you want me to do?”
Fair enough. The last eight years has been atrocious.
What about the last four games under Jones’ tenure? Winless. Well, it’s no good dwelling on the past, is it?
We move on.
Jones mentioned that they’d had their best ever training session the day before.
There was a good 6000 word feature story on how well they’d trained, but alas, no follow-up questions. Chance gone begging.
They only wanted to focus on the negativity of the past.
Not one journo ventured to ask which inspirational movie he might watch on the flight, which patisseries he was keen on discovering in the land of the eclair, or whether the team would take in the Musee d’Art Moderne while they’re based in Saint-Etienne.
Jones was incensed by the reporters’ attitudes.
“I can’t believe the level of negativity, you’re so bloody negative about everything,” Jones said.
“We’re going off to a World Cup you think we can’t win. You think the selection process is bad because the players complained. We’ll go out there and do our best boys. If you haven’t got anything positive to say, don’t ask.
“I know you blokes think we can’t do any good, so don’t ask any questions. Just be the pessimists you are. Keep Australian rugby where it’s been.”
It surely is not a ploy by Jones to create an “us versus them” mentality so the players have additional motivation to play above themselves in France. So he can show them headlines before games to have steam coming out of their ears.
No, that would be too obvious.
The scheming Jones is plotting strategies beyond the comprehension of mere click-bait merchants.
Thankfully, they had the sense not to ask him why he has only one frontline five-eighth – Carter Gordon – in his squad, and not one first-choice Super Rugby goal-kicker for a tournament where key games are most often decided by kickers.
Or why Max Jorgensen was picked under an injury cloud, but Hooper and Len Ikitau were left out because they’re under injury clouds.
Or, God forbid, why many of his staff and players are still in regular contact with predecessor Dave Rennie, very much not discussing “the past”.
Jones has the Wallabies primed to win the biggest trophy in the game and the Aussie media is too biased and blinded to see it.
These same journos who’ve fought tooth and nail with editors to keep rugby in the newspapers, who have scoured the landscape from suburban grounds to plush administrative offices looking for answers to the two decade-long decline, who’ve put their names to critical analysis that former players and officials echo but won’t say on record.
We’d be better served having this great game of ours covered by New Zealand rugby journalists. Or as Jones likes to call them, “Fans with keyboards”.
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Originally published as Rugby World Cup: Wallabies coach Eddie Jones makes bizarre rant at journalists in failed bid at deflection
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