Pending some miracle involving Fiji losing its last two pool matches, 2023 would arguably be the worst year that Australian rugby has seen.
Certainly the worst since 2005, which of course was the last time Eddie Jones was in charge of the Wallabies.
We seem to have forgotten that in 2005 the Wallabies lost a record seven in a row under his tutelage. If you recall, we sacked him not long after this.
Of course Eddie has had his successes between his wallaby reigns. He has some attributes to be fair to him. He is experienced, he is hard-working and, well, I can’t think of another actually.
His shortcomings are such that they far outweigh what he brings to the table. Putting aside his embarrassing press conference behaviour, and the unnecessary apparent mind game mentality he brings to coaching, today I will only talk about the two shortcomings that should be enough to sack him.
Eddie Jones. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
I will cut straight to the chase and say his worst shortcoming is his decision making as a selector. His second is the tactics he believes in, that are a proven overall failure.
His selection of so many inexperienced players for the 2023 Rugby World Cup was always a recipe for disaster. At worst we could consider some selections as farcical or hypocritical. At best they were ill-considered.
I’m not saying that all of the plethora of experienced players left out were all automatic starting selections, but most of them certainly should have been. Had most of these players been playing at this World Cup I have no doubt we would have qualified into the finals and arguably could have gone very deep into the tournament indeed.
Frankly, Jones has a history of getting things wrong with selection at World Cups for Australia. In 2003 he made the crucially poor decision to sit out the likes of Joe Roff and Chris Latham.
More crucially a lot of people forget who he left out of that 2003 squad altogether.
Owen Finegan would have made the difference in that rain-affected final, of that I have never had a doubt. Yet he was not even in that squad. This was arguably the worst selection decision I’ve ever heard of. Well at least until 2023, when he decided to leave out Michael Hooper.
Some might also argue Quade Cooper was just as dumbfounding.
Ben Donaldson in the World Cup match against Wales. (Photo by Craig Mercer/MB Media/Getty Images)
I’d also say, in no particular order, Pete Samu, Harry Wilson, Jake Gordon, Ned Hanigan, Tom Wright, Jed Hollaway, Lachlan Lonergan, Lachlan Swinton, Noah Lolesio and even possibly Reece Hodge or James O’Connor would all have been extremely useful at this world cup.
This brings me to his second worst shortcoming. Tactics.
At risk of lecturing people on the modern structure of rugby, most teams structure their attacking game around the ‘1-3-3-1’ forward structure or a similar derivative of this. This is combined with playmakers generally near or behind the pods of ‘3’, with other members of the backline in wide attacking positions, supported by a loose-forward.
This basic phase play structure allows a team like Ireland in particular to rehearse their patterns of play so that every player knows exactly where they need to be at any given time. Ireland just so happen to do it better than everyone and that is probably why they are ranked number one in the world.
What Eddie Jones failed to do with England, which was one of the reasons he was sacked, was to successfully scrap the previously mentioned structure for what he believes is the future of rugby union. Sadly he has brought this style with him to Australia.
He has been known to call it ‘position-less’ Rugby. A Rugby League inspired style where all non playmaker roles are interchangeable. A game plan that seems to ignore the importance of the traditional value of set-piece and that is reliant on forming mini structures, on the run, during phase play.
I call it structureless rugby because, apart from the playmakers, it is reliant on any player making any decision to play any role in attack, regardless of the eventual consequence. It fails because it lends itself to attacking player isolation. That is its weakness.
If you analyse the Wallaby play this year, our structured phase play has been a disaster. It has only ever occasionally worked, as was the case with England, because it is over reliant on decision making.
Jordan Petaia against Fiji. (Photo by Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)
For example – in the game against Wales, midway through the first half, we had one brilliant portion of multiple phase play rugby. The only problem was by the fourth or fifth phase, eleven of our players ended up within 5 metres of the ball. It went wide to the playmaker Ben Donaldson who looked on his outside and saw that he had most of the field outside him with only two players in support. He had no choice but to kick the ball away and all the momentum was lost.
With a patterned structure he would have been able to exploit the Welsh defence with a backline, coupled with at-least one forward in breakdown support. After this point I noted that the Wallabies were never in the game again.
In the long run Eddie’s style will not work because Rugby is much more complicated than he thinks it is. Until Eddie sees the light he will continue to employ people like Jason Ryles as the Wallaby attack coach, who was only ever going to have a Rugby League level of understanding of this game that would see us fail in attack. If this continues, the Wallabies will continue to fail.
Unless Eddie Jones is willing to go back to a well rehearsed structure and acknowledge his selection decision failings, we are doomed for years of failure.
I doubt he will and so I think we all need to be much more vocal in calling for his sacking.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.
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