Wallabies coach Eddie Jones denies Japan job interview
In his first in-depth interview since the Wallabies nightmarish World Cup loss coach Eddie Jones says Australian rugby has lost its identity as he emphatically denies having a job interview with Japan.
Besieged Wallabies coach Eddie Jones has emphatically denied being interviewed or applying for a job with Japanese rugby and reinforced his determination to lift Australia to the No.1 world ranking.
In his first in-depth interview since the Wallabies nightmarish World Cup loss to Wales, Jones, dismissed reports that he was interviewed for the soon-to-be vacant Japan role.
“No, I haven’t applied for a job for a long time,” Jones told The Australian.
When questioned if he had an interview for a role or if Japanese rugby had reached out to him Jones several times said; “No.”
The Wallabies coach said there was nothing more to add or clarify on the Nine newspapers’ report which was released on the eve of their crunch pool game against Wales last Sunday and again said he was wholly invested in leaving the Australian game in a “better place”.
“Someone’s got a story and they’re running with it, and the only thing I can say I’m committed to coach Australia and there’s the other side of the coin of course that Australian rugby will make the decision after this World Cup whether they want to keep me or not and that’s up to them,” Jones said.
“Whatever goes on I’ve come back to help Australian rugby and so if I become an issue then I’ll have to go. In all honesty, I’m pretty even tempered about it, I’ve just got to keep doing what I think is right.”
Jones said he had not read the reports that have called for him to stand down or be sacked, and said he “doesn’t care” what is written with his sole focus on reviving Australian rugby.
“That’s the only motivation I’ve got is; I want to leave Australian rugby in a better place whenever I leave,” Jones said. “And that’s the job I’ve got to do and I want to do and I feel strongly about and I believe in.”
While trying to transform the Wallabies has been so far “painful”, Jones has one win from eight starts, he remains confident he can lift the team from 10th spot to world champions in time.
“This is something I knew would need a lot of work,” Jones said. “I’m putting down some foundations that are going to help Australia in the future and I am prepared to pay the price of any personal hardship ….I’m a coach, I realise, whenever you take over a new team and the team you’ve had is not good enough, you got to start again and that involves some pain.”
“And you’ve got to be prepared to take the pain, otherwise, don’t coach.”
Just months into the five-year tenure which is set to take him through to the 2027 World Cup, Jones stands by his youthful team selection and said such decisions had to be made in order to become a winning outfit even if in the short term it produced their worst performance at a World Cup (losing 40-6 to Wales).
“One area to look at, if you look at Wales, they had 855 caps, we had 455 caps of which 132 were (prop) James Slipper’s,” he said. “You‘re talking about a team that’s a third the experience of Wales. And because of that there’s some pain involved because in the big moments they don’t handle it as well as they could because they don’t have the experience to fall back on. And, and then you say, so why did you pick such a young team?”
“Because I don‘t believe the team we did have is ever going to be good enough to win a World Cup. And I think this team can be good enough to win a World Cup and obviously it’s not going to be this World Cup but it can be the next World Cup.”
Jones said it will take time to lift this side up to becoming a force in world rugby but he truly believes he can make it happen – in time.
“I mean it genuinely takes five or six years to build a World Cup winning team and you‘ve got to go through a bit of hardship to do that,” Jones said. “You look at that England side in 2003, in ’98 yet they brought a young side out to Australia and they got beaten 76-nil by Australia. And England ended up winning the World Cup in 2003.
“And it’s hard for people to buy into that because you know that they think the coach is making excuses for the performance of the team and I’m not trying to make excuses at all, but what I’m trying to say is that I’ve got a strategy in place of how to make Australia strong again and that involves a bit of pain now unfortunately.”
As Rugby Australia plan to centralise their high performance program Jones said it was integral that the system was improved. He said currently the domestic competition lacked competitiveness and the players trying to make the cut for the Wallabies to be ‘hungrier’.
“It just comes down to having better environments for the players to prepare at Super Rugby level and having a consistency of preparation and a consistency of wanting to be the world‘s best,” Jones said. “What I’ve noticed coming back to Australia is that we’re reasonably comfortable just being where we are … and that’s only going to get worse and worse. So we need to have a great aspiration of being the best in the world.”
“You need people that compete because when people are competing, they bring out their best. So we need Super Rugby to be in a more competitive environment. We need the players at the Wallaby level to be hungrier, to get better, and then we need to develop an Australian style of game. You know, we don‘t have an Australian style of game now. Yeah. Which we did have. Which was a combination of probably that larrikin, that bit of smartness and toughness. And we’ve lost that over the period of time and we need to develop our own style of game back.”
Jones remains positive that he can turn around the team in time as it heads towards the home Lions Tour in 2025 and the World Cup in 2027. He said the effort from the players is there but it will take time.
“There’s effort there, there’s plenty of care, but we’re not good enough,” Jones said. “Yeah, we’ve got to realise we’re not good enough. And the only way to get better is to keep working hard, keep together. And if you do that, the results will turn around. You know, sometimes the scoreboard is the last thing that changes. And when you changing the team and you know … the whole culture of Australian rugby probably needs to change. But that’s not my responsibility.
“It’s other people’s responsibility but my responsibility is to change the team. And you know, I haven’t been able to do that in the short term. That doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen. … I believe we’re bringing through a lot of good young players who at the moment aren’t equipped to handle Test rugby.”
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