Eddie Jones has resigned as Wallabies coach after World Cup failure

In an exclusive interview, Eddie Jones said he knew his time was up during the World Cup campaign after the 40-6 loss to Wales in the third game of their ultimately humiliating campaign.

Eddie Jones before the World Cup match against Portugal. Picture: Getty Images

Eddie Jones has resigned as Wallabies coach.

In an exclusive interview with The Australian, Jones said he knew his time was up with the Wallabies after the 40-6 World Cup loss to Wales in the third game of their ultimately humiliating campaign.

Jones said he decided to stand down when he realised the likelihood of “real change” in the Australian rugby system was “unlikely” and if that was the case his time “was limited”.

It’s understood there was a clause in Jones’ five-year contract which hinged on centralising Rugby Australia’s high performance system, which while in process, is yet to happen.

Jones amicably agreed to terms with RA powerbrokers Phil Waugh and Hamish McLennan over the weekend and The Australian understands the deed of release is soon to be signed.

There will be no payout to Jones who had a lengthy contract through to the 2027 World Cup in Australia.

While Jones has “zero regrets” - he said he was upset by the portrayal by sections of the media who reported he was not committed to Australian rugby and that he had interviewed with Japan during the World Cup - despite his repeated denials of doing so.

“The only thing I’m disappointed about is the media was trying to portray me as not being committed to Australian rugby,” he said.

“The last thing anyone could criticise me about is commitment. Anyone that really knows me, knows I’ve been committed to it. I’ve given it a go.”

“It’s the old equation that if you want success you’ve got to have to get the timing right and you’ve got to have an opportunity to do it. Now I’ve got the timing wrong, because we’re not ready for the change yet. But hopefully maybe what I can be is a catalyst for change and people will start to see, we really need to get onto this now (changing Australian rugby’s high performance system).”

While Jones hopes to coach “one more international team, one more cycle” in the future, he says he doesn’t currently have a job to go to.

Jones hopes his departure will be the catalyst for change in Australian rugby - the Wallabies haven’t won the World Cup in 24 years and the Bledisloe in 22 years - and highlights the need to fix the high performance system and talent pathways.

“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.”

Jones said there are clearly two main problems for Australian rugby.

“Firstly, it’s capturing the talent,” he said. “Currently at the age of 14, 15, every athletic kid, the NRL teams want them if they are tall and they can run, AFL teams want them too - and if they’re tough, rugby teams want them - and what we’re doing, we’re not capturing the amount of talent we need to capture and keeping them.”

“We are letting too many good kids go to NRL and probably some of the tall kids go to the AFL and that is something that needs to be attended to - that’s the first thing.”

Jones said there is not also enough attention on securing “rough diamonds” from the public school system, players like George Smith who attended Cromer High and then became a star for the Wallabies, and the code desperately needed to fix its dysfunctional pathways to the top.

“George was a rough and tough kid who set a new standard for Australian rugby…what we haven’t done is capture the rough and tough kids in the public school,” he said. “I go back to my school Matraville High…and we produced I don’t know how many Wallabies but now the kids there are primarily playing soccer.”

“We’ve got to invest in the non-traditional rugby areas and again that comes down to money and it comes down to strategic plans - yes we need to keep the private schools going here because they’re very important but we need to add another pool of players to it to make them more competitive.”

The second problem? Little competition.

“And then secondly, we need a much more competitive environment at the top professional end, and we need players to have to work really hard, to be good players to try to survive,” Jones said.

“Professional sports is a lot about surviving. You’ve got to enjoy the grind. When you talk to any player, what they’re good at doing is enjoying the grind of hard training together. We just don’t have that in Australian rugby at the moment because it’s too easy to get through, to be in the team.

“Out of the five Super Rugby teams, we’ve got one team, that’s an average of 40 per cent against New Zealand teams winning. The other four teams have got an average of less than 20 per cent winning. We’re just not competitive. And what does that tell you? That environment’s not competitive, that’s all that tells you.”

Jones, who departed England in acrimonious circumstances last year, said his split with Australia has been his most amicable departure in his decorated rugby career yet.

He also defended rugby chair McLennan, who is facing pressure and calls for him to stand aside following Australia’s disastrous World Cup campaign and for appointing Jones.

The push for change, especially in the high performance space, has been met with opposition from Queensland and the ACT, with states and territories yet to fully commit to the plan.

“And the problem is not Hamish [McLennan], the problem I believe, is in the talent identification and the high performance system and if they can concentrate on that there’s a pathway forward to the much better times for Australian rugby,” Jones said.

“Hamish has got a pretty good idea of what needs to be done. He just can’t do it at the moment. We’re not in disagreement about what needs to be done but he’s got all the political obstacles, he’s got financial obstacles. And it just can’t be done in time. And so I’m not just going to sit at the trough and accept all that, that’s it, I can’t do that. I don’t want to do that.”

He said the key is for Rugby Australia to secure a dogged and determined high performance manager intent on overhauling the high performance system.

“While Hamish definitely wants to change it, he’s been bullish in trying to bring Australian rugby up,” Jones said.

“He’s gone out; got the World Cups and the British Lions has fallen in his lap because timing, he’s put that big picture in front at the top end, what hasn’t been done is this drive of the nuts and bolts which is the high performance of it and the connection between the levels,” Jones said.

“And that’s the thing that’s missing and what they need and they are advertising for it now. They need the best performance director that they can find in Australia to put that system in place and to drive it and to be obsessed by it. They need someone in there that is absolutely obsessed about doing it. You look at all the you look at the NRL clubs, you know Gus Gould did it at Penrith. He said it would take them five years, it took him 10 years. Look what’s happened now, he’s doing the same at Canterbury.”

A “disappointed” Jones says he feels “no grievance” towards anyone, he has had a positive relationship with the current young Wallabies playing group, and believes this team can potentially be champions by the home rugby World Cup in 2027.

Jones, who was in his second iteration as Wallabies coach, says he has no regrets about picking a young, inexperienced team for France. Just seven of the 33 players were aged 30 or above.

“I think if we kept with the status quo, maybe we would have had a quarterfinal exit at the World Cup maybe? Now does that really help us or hinder us in the future? What I decided to do was; I’ll bite the bullet, I will go for the young players and see if we can play above ourselves,” he said.

“We probably played to our form, with what we’ve got now is, is there’s probably now 24 of that 33 that went to the World Cup who’ve now got the right level of experience … and they’ve had that massive disappointment, so for the next four years they work really hard being the best team they can be, then they can be a team that can go close to winning the World Cup, I’ve got no doubt about that.”

“So I feel disappointed about the World Cup. I feel disappointment about the fact that what we wanted to do in terms of changing the system hasn’t been able to happen in the short term. In the short and medium term, it really affects me personally. I have a major feeling of disappointment. But I don’t feel any grievance towards anyone.”

“I’ve really enjoyed coaching the players. The players have been fantastic. They just need a better environment to be training and playing in.”

He said his time with this Wallabies team proved he had evolved - sources told The Australian he was well respected and liked by the team.

“What I have learned is that, you know, I’ve been portrayed an aggressive, domineering coach but I’ve taken a young group of players albeit I haven’t been able to improve on the scoreboard but I have been able to mould them into a team that’s committed and that wants to play well,” he said. “I’ve been able to almost like control of my personality and I’ve been able to coach in a different way.”

Jones is currently in the United Kingdom training the Barbarians with Scott Robertson ahead of their match against Wales on November 4.

As for Jones’ next chapter, says there is nothing set in stone and is looking forward to spending more time with his wife Hiroko.

“I haven’t got any job offer ...I’ve been living apart from my wife because she lives in Japan,” he said. “I want to spend a bit of time with her. I want to stay married. I think at 63 I don’t want to get divorced. And then come December, I’ll start to have a look and see what I’d like to coach another international team, I like to coach one more team. One more cycle.”