‘I’ve failed . . . do you want me to get on my knees?’
If the Wallabies suffer another World Cup defeat on Monday morning - and notch up their first ever pool-stage exit - will the curtain be drawn on the Eddie show?
“Are you just here for the Eddie show?” the Australian media manager asks at the Wallabies’ team hotel in Lyon.
It is three weeks and two rounds into the World Cup and Eddie Jones has lost six Tests in seven with his new team - a run of eight in eleven for the 63-year-old, if you count the end of his tenure with England.
Another defeat at the hands of Wales on Sunday and his Australians - who he said would not only win this World Cup in France, but the next one in 2027 at home, too - would be on the brink of their first ever pool-stage exit.
Down under, former players are circling like vultures. David Campese is calling for an inquiry into the parlous state of Australian rugby, Drew Mitchell has sprayed Jones - as the Aussies say - for last Sunday’s 22-15 defeat by Fiji, questioning his selections and explanations for them, passionately punctuated by plenty of F-words.
Rugby Australia’s chief executive, Hamish McLennan, who brutally sacked Dave Rennie in January to parachute Jones in as head coach for a second spell, is on the rack too, blaming 20 years of misery for the Fijian defeat.
So yes, we are here for the Eddie show. Jones enjoys his cricket and at the start of his press conference it feels like watching an opening batsman carefully studying the movement of the new ball.
Jones quietly nurdles away questions about dropping his 22-year-old fly half Carter Gordon to the bench - having taken him off early against Fiji - sticking with the hooker Dave Porecki, instead of Tate McDermott, as captain, and what Andrew Kellaway can bring from full back. Soon enough, though, Jones is coaxed into playing some shots.
“I’ve let Australian rugby down,” he says, when asked how he is approaching the crunch pool C game against the Welsh. “I haven’t done the job I was brought in to do. I was brought in to turn it around, so I feel that responsibility.”
Now with his eye in, Jones takes issue with a line of questioning about who might replace Max Jorgensen, the 19-year-old back who broke a leg this week. He was the seventh player to suffer a training-ground injury in Wallaby camps this year.
Tim Horan, the double World Cup winner from 1991 and 1999, has tweeted that Jones should call up Joseph Sua’ali’i, the 20-year-old rugby league star who has been poached for the Wallabies by Rugby Australia for next year.
So has Jones sorted a replacement? “Yeah, I have. But we don’t need to announce it yet,” he replies. Challenged as to why that is a secret, he hits back.
“Is that all right? Sorry. I don’t want to be arrogant to you. I know how sensitive you are,” he says to an Australian reporter.
Now we are into Jones’s hitting zone. Is he relishing this position, his back firmly against the wall?
“When you coach, you make a choice to put yourself in these positions,” Jones says. “If I didn’t want to put myself in these positions, I could be teaching. I could have a nice life and get up every morning; the wife puts the packed lunch in the bag, put a shirt and tie on, know I’m going to teach six periods, come home, wash the dog, clean the car, watch Channel 7 or ABC News and then get the packed lunch ready for the next day. I could have done that, mate.
“But I made a choice to coach. I love winning and I love it when you’ve got to try to create a team, where everyone thinks they’re going to lose, to put themselves in a position to win. I don’t know if it’s a drug but that’s the rush from coaching, mate.
“We’ve got ten times more people here than we normally do for an Australian press conference because people smell blood. That makes it even more exciting.”
Challenged on his recent record, Jones sarcastically invokes dogeza - the Japanese practice of kneeling to show the deepness of an apology.
“I think I’m 100 per cent doing the right thing for Australian rugby,” Jones says. “Like I said, I apologise for the results. I can get down on my knees and do the Japanese thing if you want me to?
“I can’t apologise any more, guys. I’m really sorry we haven’t had better results but all I know is what we’re doing is right for Australian rugby.”
Jones was brought in for what he termed the “smash and grab” plan to win this World Cup. The stated idea was for him then to stay and coach the Wallabies against the British & Irish Lions, in 2025, and at the World Cup in Australia two years later.
Already, many in Australia do not believe he will last - whether he decides to jump, or his bosses push him. Jones refused to confirm that he would be sticking around.
“I want to coach as best as I can on Saturday . . . Sunday,” he says, correcting himself. “That’s all I can say. That’s the only job I’ve got at the moment. At the end of the World Cup there’ll be a review, and given the results we’ve had, then maybe Rugby Australia doesn’t want to keep me. That’s the reality of the job and I understand that.”
He is resolute in his belief that he was correct to pick an inexperienced side for this World Cup and drop the likes of Michael Hooper and Quade Cooper.
“I don’t know of any team that you can come in and blow magic over,” Jones says. “You’ve got to go through a process, you’ve got to find out what’s wrong with the team, and then you’ve got to try to address those problems.
“I sit here very comfortably feeling like I’m doing the job I should be doing. We’ve needed to move players on. We need to create a new group of players that have higher standards of training, higher standards of behaviour, higher standards of expectation. That’s what we’re trying to do, mate.
“If we’ve fallen short, that’s OK. I’d rather aim up here and not reach it. Our results haven’t been good enough and I understand that. But we’re trying to create a team that creates dreams for Australian rugby. We’re not trying to be a mediocre team. If we’re trying to be a mediocre team, there’s other things we could have done.
“We want to be a really good team and there is some pain and failure involved in being a really good team.”
Jones has always loved coaching and World Cups. Is he finding it enjoyable at the moment, though?
“I just love rugby, mate,” Jones responds, banging the table as he speaks. “I love the game, I love trying to get a young group of players, trying to get them to be the best version of themselves. That’s the allure. Then you get to see the game played well. Then it’s a real buzz.
“I’ve got no doubt we’ll win on Sunday. Got no doubt.”
And can Australia still win the World Cup, as he predicted?
“Yeah, 100 per cent. But we’ve got to beat Wales on Sunday,” Jones replies.
With that he takes his call, and exits stage left. But if Australia suffer another defeat on Sunday night, will the curtain be drawn on the Eddie show?
THE TIMES
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