‘Eat s***’: Fury over Eddie Jones’ final comment about Wallabies
Eddie Jones has dropped a final bomb on Australian rugby with the former coach pulling the pin on his Wallabies dumpster fire.
Eddie Jones has dropped a final bomb on Australian rugby having already guided the Wallabies to rock bottom.
The former coach on Sunday quit his position despite repeatedly insisting he was committed to coaching the Wallabies.
It ends the most catastrophic 12 months in the history of Australian rugby with the 63-year-old brought in to replace Dave Rennie just months before the 2023 World Cup.
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Picking an entirely experimental team for the tournament, Jones’ young Wallabies crashed out in the group stage for the first time.
Jones’ tenure was doomed from the start, losing a series of Test matches before the tournament. He walks away with just two wins from nine Tests.
Eddie Jones 2nd #Wallabies Tenure (Jan 2023 - Oct 2023)
— Fox Sports Lab (@FoxSportsLab) October 29, 2023
22% win rate (2/9)
0 wins v Tier 1 opposition (first time since 1995)
30 points against per game - most in a calendar year
6 Captains in 9 Tests
Last Place in Rugby Championship (first time)
Largest loss to RSA since 2008
To add further insult to the black eye he has given Australian rugby, Jones has given two final interviews where he has suggested Rugby Australia has bigger problems than himself.
“Hopefully it will be the catalyst for change. Sometimes you have to eat shit for others to eat caviar further down the track,” he told The Sydney Morning Herald.
Jones has also told The Australian he could see the writing was on the wall as soon as Australia lost to Wales at the World Cup.
“I’m not a highly religious person, but you’ve always got a job to do somewhere and sometimes, you’ve got to eat a bit of shit for the people to eat the nice buffet a few years later and maybe I’ve had to eat a bit of shit to do it, you know?” Jones said.
“Because now people are talking about the problem, and now it’s whether they can identify the problem.”
The report reveals Jones met with Rugby Australia chief executive Phil Waugh and chairman Hamish McLennan before his exit was made official.
Jones will not receive a pay-out despite remaining contracted through to the end of the 2027 World Cup.
Linked with a return to Japanese rugby just before the World Cup began, Jones vehemently and repeatedly denied any knowledge of that rumour.
At a press conference 12 days ago in Coogee, Jones again insisted “I haven’t been speaking to anyone mate” in response to those Japanese links.
He also said for the umpteenth time he wanted to coach Australia to the next World Cup.
“That’s the intention mate. But as you know we play in a game where the coach doesn’t decide how long they stay,” he told reporters.
Then in a chat with ex-Wallaby Peter FitzSimons two days ago, Jones only stoked the bizarre nature of his time with the Wallabies when he stated he was heading to Japan next month - for a holiday with his wife.
It will shock absolutely no one if he is soon announced as the coach of the Brave Blossoms, which just like the Wallabies, would be his second stint.
He can only hope it will have a better finish than this absolute dumpster fire.
Jones had coached the Wallabies to a World Cup final in his first stint, which ran from 2001 to 2005, losing the decider to England.
The Tasmanian then became a global coach for hire, enjoying time with South Africa, Japan and England in a number of roles.
He coached the English to his second World Cup final in 2019, but suffered the same fate he had back in 2003, this time against South Africa.
Jones returned to the Australian scene at a time when the sport is just about at its lowest ever ebb.
Super Rugby results, crowds and ratings have all bottomed out and the Wallabies now need to pick up the pieces of a dismal World Cup, while former contemporaries South Africa and New Zealand just contested the final.
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“We have the nucleus of a really good team,” Jones said earlier this month.
“We had the courage to go with a younger squad and I think this squad is going to stand Australia in good stead.”
It just seems now, after all the innuendo and denials, that so-called “courage” will need to be picked up by yet another head coach.