‘Kidding themselves’ – Former All Blacks coach’s shock Eddie Jones call
Eddie Jones has received unlikely support with calls for Rugby Australia to stick with the Wallabies mentor despite a disastrous World Cup campaign.
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Eddie Jones has received unlikely support from a longtime nemesis, with Steve Hansen calling for Rugby Australia to stick with the Wallabies mentor despite Australia’s disastrous World Cup campaign.
While the vast majority of the Australian public is calling for Jones to either resign or be fired, legendary All Blacks coach Hansen said Australian rugby’s issues go far deeper than the national coach.
In a wide-ranging conversation following Australia‘s historic defeat to Wales, two-time World Cup winner Hansen also said he’d never coach the Wallabies, but would consider sitting on an advisory panel to address the code’s numerous problems in Australia, and argued for a move back to three or four Australian Super Rugby sides.
None of those hard questions will be answered by sacking Jones though, he said.
“Australian rugby has to look deeper than just the coach, because if they think that’s going to fix their problems, they’re kidding themselves,” Hansen told this masthead.
“It would be foolish to go changing coaches again, because a new coach will come in and won’t own any of the issues that happened at the last World Cup.
“It’s too easy to keep blaming the coach or blaming the players. The issue is deeper than that, and Australian rugby has to peel the onion right back and be brutally, brutally honest with itself and work out what it needs to do to start bringing players, coaches and administrators through the game from community level to international level.
“It’s not one person or one player’s problem. It’s a country problem.”
Lessons from 2007
That’s not the advice an angry Australian rugby public hungry for blood wants to hear, but Hansen is speaking from experience.
At the 2007 World Cup, he was on Graham Henry‘s coaching staff for the All Blacks’ quarter-final exit, and says Australian rugby can learn from New Zealand’s response.
Red hot favourites going into the ’07 tournament, the ABs were bundled out by France in what remains one of the darkest days for the sport in New Zealand.
Despite a massive public backlash, Henry and Hansen kept their jobs, learned from their mistakes and the All Blacks became the only side to win back-to-back World Cups at the next two tournaments.
“We were given another chance, so we had to own that from the start, then we had an opportunity to fix it,” Hansen said. “Having someone go through the next cycle, who has to own the issues is vital.
“In ’07, we had to look at what our players were missing and what they weren’t getting at Super Rugby level, then try to introduce that earlier on. Things like mental skills, leadership – all those things should be happening at a lower level, so when you become an international, you already have them.”
Would Hansen coach the Wallabies?
Hansen spent a week in Wallabies camp in the lead up to this year’s World Cup, but is adamant he’d never come on-board full time.
“No, I would never coach against the All Blacks,” he said. “But that’s another issue that hits you in the face straight away: for such a talented sporting country, why are there not more Australian rugby coaches coming to the top?
“Why aren’t they being developed?
“Again, it’s deeper issues.”
With the countries playing one another so often, New Zealand rugby has a vested interest in keeping the Wallabies and Australia’s Super Rugby sides competitive, and Hansen says he would be willing to help in any post-World Cup overhaul the game has in Australia.
“I’d consider helping a review of Australian rugby,” he said. “I’d consider doing that, because it’s only going to make New Zealand rugby stronger if Australian rugby is stronger.
“I wouldn’t put on a tracksuit or join the team, but the game is bigger than all of us, and we need Southern Hemisphere rugby to be strong. At the moment it probably isn’t as strong as it should be.”
Drastic measures needed
Rather than giving Jones his marching orders and scrambling to find a new coach, Hansen says the game’s decision makers in this country must start asking some hard questions about the long-term health of the sport.
“I’ve always felt (five Australian Super Rugby teams) is too many,” he said. “Australian rugby was really strong when there were three.
“I understand you’ve gotta develop the game and create content for TV, but I think you maybe amalgamate the Brumbies and the Rebels, which would be tough on the Brumbies, because they’ve been very successful.
“But for the betterment of Australian rugby, you need to make it harder to get a contract. You need to work harder to get it and not spread the resources so thin.”
Selections wouldn’t have made a difference
Jones’ selection decisions have been heavily criticised since back-to-back losses to Fiji and Wales, but Hansen doesn’t believe results would have changed if Michael Hooper, Quade Cooper, Bernard Foley or Jed Holloway were in France.
“We can argue until we’re blue in the face about selections, but personally I think you could have taken whoever you wanted to that tournament and the result would have been the same,” he said. “Maybe marginally better results, but probably the same results, and that’s because of the problems that are happening in Australian rugby.
“I can tell you for a fact, because I’ve seen it, it’s not because the coach or the coaching staff or the players not working hard enough.
“There’s not a coach in the world that works harder than Eddie Jones. They couldn’t do any more than they were doing, they were all working their butts off and they’re really hurting because they’ve let their country down.
“But you have to take a pragmatic approach and say, ‘Right, what can we fix? What’s immediate, what’s going to be long term, and what’s not being addressed at the moment?’ and I’ve got no doubt that one of those things is that there’s too many Super teams.”
Jones’ Japan debacle
News broke on the eve of the crucial Wales clash that Jones had interviewed via Zoom for the Japan coaching role just days before the World Cup kicked off.
Hansen wants to know more details about the meeting before passing judgement.
“Everyone’s jumped on the bandwagon and is having a crack, but did it actually happen?” he asked. “I saw Eddie being asked on telly tonight and he said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’, so if he’s saying it hasn’t happened, it hasn’t happened.
“It’s too easy to start firing guns, but until we get down to the facts, it shouldn’t be treated as gospel. If it’s true, then that’s something that has to be addressed, but I can tell you now that there would not be another coach more committed to finding success than Eddie Jones.
“The man’s a workaholic.”
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