Rugby World Cup: Wallabies coach Eddie Jones, Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan must walk | Alan Jones
Earlier this year Eddie Jones complained his salary made him ‘a volunteer’ and hinted he wouldn’t stay on after the World Cup. Now it’s time for the Wallabies coach to stick to his promise, writes Alan Jones.
If there is any decency, dignity or concern for the rugby family within Rugby Australia, the chairman, Hamish McLennan, and the coach, Eddie Jones, should be gone today.
Rugby people are tired of the total lack of accountability and excuse making within the administration, to say nothing of the captain’s pick of Jones.
The media have a good deal to answer for as well.
From the day McLennan boasted to the world that he had secured “the best coach in the world” and “you wait, you get the Wallabies winning; we win the World Cup; we win the British and Irish Lion Series; we win the Bledisloe Cup, it all comes back”, the media, almost without exception, bought this stuff hook, line and sinker.
I argued at the time that the prestigious rugby job of coaching Australia should have been advertised.
I argued there had been very little analysis of the background to the Jones appointment, other than while the utterly discredited Rugby Australia chairman was assuring the incumbent Dave Rennie that he would be coaching the Wallabies up until the World Cup, behind Rennie’s back, McLennan, for months, was reportedly talking to Jones.
And now we learn, on the eve of the World Cup itself, the same Jones was secretly interviewed by Japanese rugby officials to become their head coach.
Jones has vehemently denied this.
The reports stated that Jones was, at the time, in Paris with the Wallabies, two days out from the World Cup warm-up match against France, where we were thumped 41-17.
By his own acknowledgement, the then newly appointed Australia coach had said, before this all began, “my greatest weakness is that I can’t tolerate people”.
It was obvious from the attitude of the gifted players representing us against Wales, that they, too, can’t tolerate the coach.
They were aimless to the point of embarrassment.
So whatever the so-called “game plan” was, it went out the window when they walked on the pitch.
Remember, we had almost as much possession as Wales.
They got 40 points, we got next to nothing.
The last time Jones coached Australia, he was sacked, in 2005, after seven straight losses.
What the hell are the rugby supporters to make of millions of dollars being spent on this team - expensive coaching camps, a reported million-dollar salary to Jones, while he is apparently still being paid out by England, 12 assistant coaches. What are they paid?
And McLennan and his fellow rugby fat cats in Paris, most probably staying in the best hotels, and running up more bills where the money could be better spent on grassroots here.
It is all very well saying that the “game” needs a root and branch overhaul.
That is a media cop-out, shorthand for saying, we backed the Jones appointment from day one; we forecast great success; we now have egg on our faces; and so we have to say the problem is with the game, not with Jones.
Funny argument that.
It didn’t apply when Rennie was sacked.
As I have previously written, only a year ago Rennie coached Australia against the All Blacks, in Melbourne, and lost after the bell, 39-37.
As I have previously written, the “rugby Messiah”, Jones, had access to the very same players 12 months on, at the same venue, and the Wallabies were thrashed 38-7.
Twelve months ago Rennie took the Wallabies on a Spring tour.
In Paris, Rennie’s Wallabies lost to the French, 30-29.
It was a happy Wallaby team, committed to the coach.
In the warm up to this World Cup, Jones had access to the same players.
Australia were thrashed by France 41-17.
And now this fiasco; and the excuses keep coming.
It is a young side.
That is absolute horse manure.
Jones keeps saying he takes responsibility for the loss to Fiji.
He now takes responsibility for the flogging by Wales.
He has two of his best players with soft tissue injuries.
How the hell does that happen unless someone is badly preparing the side.
And then another breaks a leg.
McLennan told the critics of this Wallaby performances not to watch the match against Wales.
That turned out to be good advice.
There was nothing to watch except another thrashing.
Yet McLennan persists on demonising Rennie and justifying his appointment of Jones.
“Dave Rennie was not working out. The numbers didn’t suggest that he could get us very far in this tournament”.
I have cited the numbers above.
But now, only two days ago, McLennan still suggests that Jones is “a world class coach” and he is the right man for 2027. He isn’t and nor is McLennan.
Who the hell is McLennan to be able to judge whether a bloke can coach or not; and what needs to be done to produce a successful side.
McLennan should be gone today instead of trotting out a range of excuses which were never made available to Rennie.
Whatever Rennie’s weaknesses, he never threw anyone under a bus and nor did he make excuses.
Yet McLennan now argues, “we didn’t feel confident in where the coaching was going”.
I don’t know who “we” are.
McLennan is now trying to tell us that the failure of the Wallabies in France is “a proof point of why rugby in Australia needs to change”.
This is the bloke who told us, in January, when Rennie was sacked and Jones was appointed, that we had the best coach in the world and we would win everything.
Well the rugby fans who spent their savings to get to Paris are still waiting: no hope in the World Cup, flogged in the Bledisloe Cup, and the British and Irish Lions are down the track.
But now the “game” is the problem.
It seems to have taken the Welsh thrashing for some people to wake up.
On the eve of the Welsh Test, no one knew who the captain was to be, such that we have had six captains in a matter of weeks.
In one Test, the joint captains were both props.
They would get a good view of the game when it came to analysing why the defence might have failed when a try was scored, I don’t think.
The reality is simple.
Wherever you turn, this has been an extravagant and expensive disaster.
Players were left at home who should have been in the team; players were picked who should have been left at home; Jones saddled himself with a retinue of assistant coaches having admitted, when he lost the England job, that the role of his assistants is “just so important because they are doing the bulk of the coaching”.
What the hell is he doing?
If, as he has said, “my greatest weakness is that I can’t tolerate people”, why is this bloke in charge of gifted young athletes.
To be fair to Jones, he is only partly to blame.
McLennan pushed his chest out and made the “captain’s call”.
At the same time, McLennan was talking about recruiting rugby league players; and gave young Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii a reported $5 million deal, with money rugby doesn’t have, to a young bloke already on contract to another code who is yet to play a representative rugby game.
It is not Joseph’s fault.
He is a delightful young man.
McLennan, it seems, has his hands all over this rugby demise.
If the “game” is now the problem, McLennan has been chairman for three years and done nothing about it.
McLennan should be gone today and Jones with him and the whole Rugby Australia Board must think seriously about whether they should be following them both out the door.
Hold your breath.
Portugal is not a team of no-hopers.
Someone is going to have to take hold of this side to avoid further humiliation.
Will a team of talented and ambitious young men listen to a coach who allegedly is talking to another country about a job; and has presided over nothing but failure since he got the job.
They didn’t listen in England.
I suspect they won’t here either.
Earlier this year, on yet another “freebie”, paid for by Australian rugby, Jones was in England sharing his knowledge, claiming that Rugby Australia weren’t paying him what he is worth; that his work with the Wallabies makes him “almost a volunteer”.
Not many volunteers in Australia are earning $1.2 million a year; and not too many rugby supporters today believe that this bloke is doing us a favour.
Earlier this year, on a podcast in England with a former England captain, Jones suggested he would not stay on after the 2023 World Cup.
Well, for Australia, the World Cup is over.
In the interests of gifted young players, who would love to play rugby, Eddie Jones must now stick to his promise, accept our thanks for his good intentions, but be told there are better ways of doing the job.
What happened on Monday morning our time has another tragic aftermath.
Young people, everywhere, love winners.
Try telling the talented young schoolboy and girl athletes of today, that they should sign up to the game of rugby.
McLennan and Jones have a lot to answer for.
They must be made to answer.
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