Can Rugby Australia afford Eddie Jones for the Wallabies?

Eddie Jones would seem a logical candidate for Australia to pursue, but can the Wallabies afford what he brings?

England head coach Eddie Jones watches his team in action against New Zealand at Yokohama. Picture: Getty Images

If you gave Tasmanians 10 guesses at who the most universally known living Tasmanian is — OK, aside from Ricky Ponting and maybe Tim Paine, who would get pushed over the line by a billion Indian cricket fans — they still wouldn’t come close

They would certainly know of the actor Simon Baker and they would try Errol Flynn, despite the minor inconvenience that the old swashbuckler no longer inhabits the land of the living. And the more bolshie of them, those lobbying for an AFL side in Tasmania — and, seriously, why wouldn’t they? — would come forward with the names of Australian rules greats such as Nick Riewoldt or Alastair Lynch, even though their fame extends not much further than these shores.

Mary Donaldson, the Crown Princess of Denmark no doubt would score well with the readers of Women’s Weekly and of course there will always be a solid vote for Nobel laureates and politicians and scientists. All wrong, sadly.

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The more inventive of them would excuse themselves and surreptitiously phone a friend — Wikipedia — but that would be of no help because the individual concerned isn’t even listed. Chess player Ian Rogers and woodcutter David Foster have both made their list of prominent Tasmanians but not the name of the person we are seeking.

Eddie Jones. Born January 30, 1960, Burnie.

No doubt most Tasmanians would still be scratching their heads, because rugby union gets next to no publicity in Australia’s southernmost state. But mention his name virtually anywhere throughout the English-speaking world, plus Japan, plus Argentina, anywhere indeed where rugby is played and Jones’s name gets ­instant recognition. Then wait 10 seconds and you will probably have the robust beginnings of an argument.

Jones is, without question, the single most intense person I have ever known. He loves his family and he loves his cricket, but I question whether there is a single soul, living or dead, who throughout history has thought so deeply, so incisively about the game of rugby union. Educated at Matraville High School along with the Ella brothers, he graduated to the Randwick first-grade side and when Tom Lawton called time on his career following the British Lions series of 1989, he probably was at the top of Wallabies coach Bob Dwyer’s list. Instead, Dwyer opted for the second-grade Randwick hooker, Phil Kearns, which possibly explains why Jones hasn’t spoken to him to this day. Only kidding … sort of.

In fact, Dwyer did the rugby world an enormous favour. Missing out on playing for his country ignited the flame of Jones’s coaching passion. Right at this moment, he has coached three different countries — Australia, South ­Africa (as assistant coach to Jake White) and England — to three different World Cup finals. One win, one loss in extra time and one … who knows? For that answer, we shall have to wait until next weekend but judging by the way England utterly outplayed one of the greatest sides in history on Saturday, the All Blacks, a second win looms as a distinct possibility.

Needless to say, all those Australians who witnessed the epic semi-final in Yokohama saw an Australian coach succeeding on the world stage and instantly thought: why isn’t this guy being brought back home to coach the Wallabies? Fox Sports commentators were verbalising that very thought before the players had gone down the line of post-match handshakes. So, why isn’t he?

The obstacles, in sequential order, seem to be these: first-up, Australia needs to establish a process. At the moment, it doesn’t seem to have one. Or at least it doesn’t appear to have one that does not involve Rugby Australia chief Raelene Castle and director of rugby Scott Johnson making a virtually exclusive call. Until it does, as former Wallabies great Roger Gould noted, they could ­attract Steve Hansen to the job and the whole system would still be subjected to massive criticism.

Second, having organised the process, having advertised the job, RA would then need to establish whether Jones is (a) interested and (b) available. It’s safe to say that there is some part of Jones that still itches over the way he was sacked from the Wallabies at the end of the 2005 season. As for being available, he has signed a contract with England through to 2021. RA officials say they have inquired and the contract is “watertight”. Well, if it is, it is assuredly the first coaching contract in history that can’t be broken. As for offending England, well, they didn’t seem to have a problem inducing Jones to break his contract with the South African Stormers in 2015.

OK, we have now reached the point where Australia has decided Jones is both ready and available. Can we afford him? Given that Michael Cheika was on a base salary of about $1.2m to coach the Wallabies, what figure would Jones want? $2m? More?

He surely would want to build in some punitive damages for getting the sack in 2005. And at a time when former RA director Geoff Stooke is warning the solvency of RA could be imperilled if it loses the Israel Folau case, is it even wise to be setting our sights that high? Yet perhaps if it is done on the basis of performance bonuses, there may be a way.

Finally … do we really, really want him?

Serious question.

Within six months of Jones starting the job, he will have ­offended virtually every person involved in the process … administrators, players, assistant coaches, staff, media, fans. That is an absolute given.

He is the most single-minded individual ever involved in the game of rugby and he makes ­enemies. That is the price of doing business with Jones. Everyone says he mellowed somewhat since having a stroke, but as someone who has had a stroke, I would not suggest that is necessarily a given.

Besides, his real problem is that he has no patience with anyone whose passion does not match his own. And no one’s passion matches his own. He will call coaches’ meetings at 1am and demand to know very forcefully of the forwards coach why player A has achieved a vertical leap of only x when Jones had insisted upon x+y. He will berate journalists for ­asking what he considers stupid questions.

“Stupid questions” cover a very broad range. While he will give ­respect to a well-thought-out inquiry, woe betide any journalist who leads with his chin. He will test the patience of fans. And if RA thought it had experienced the worst of a coach telling them to butt out when Cheika was running the show, it will soon come to realise it has not seen anything yet.

Dave Rennie … everyone says he is a nice bloke who spends a lot of time developing “culture”. He sounds an infinitely easier person to deal with. The question is: can he take the Wallabies to the final in 2023, especially in light of the dramatic shifts taking place in the global balance of power?

The same question, of course, must be asked of Jones.

Can the methods he used with, say, Japan when he coached them to the ­Miracle of Brighton, the ­defeat of the Springboks at the 2015 World Cup, possibly succeed within the Wallabies?

It is all very well working within a country where the concepts of wa (team harmony) and gaman (the ability to ensure) are central to the mindset, but can he achieve the same results with more laid-back Australian players?

Will Jones literally exhaust them?

The very real question has to be asked whether the Wallabies have been too spoiled for too long to accept a coach who will drive them mercilessly. All coaches reach their end point, of course, when the players simply stop listening, but what evidence is there of a total Australian commitment to perfection?

If there is not, if the Wallabies can’t commit to the discipline and the demands that Jones will make of them, demands that the current England team clearly have been prepared to bring to the table, then let’s just lower our sights and ­accept that a quarter-final exit is a fair result.

But if not … then bring on the whirlwind.