Cheika and Jones make their old club proud

Former Wallabies coach Bob Dwyer says his Randwick club are proud of both Michael Cheika and Eddie Jones and believes they may be responsible for a world first.

Cheika and Jones are coaching the Australian and England teams respectively in the three-match Test rugby union series that concludes in Sydney on Saturday.

The two men were both at the famous Randwick club in the 1980s and Dwyer doubted that former club teammates would have coached against each other at Test level before.

“It wouldn’t have have happened anywhere in the world,” current Randwick president Dwyer told AAP.

“We’re proud of the fact they played with Randwick and coached at Randwick.

“It’s also also fair to say, we’re really proud of the job both are doing.”

Cheika guided Australia to last year’s World Cup final and Jones steered England to a Six Nations grand slam this year.

Asked what Jones had done to set up an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series against Cheika’s Wallabies, Dwyer said “he has assembled a team of coaches that can obviously do their specific job very well”.

“He’s been able to put that together and come up with excellent performances.”

Dwyer, who had two terms as Wallaby coach, stressed that the unusual situation hadn’t caused any divided loyalties at Randwick.

“It hasn’t caused us to barrack for England,” Dwyer quipped.

Randwick has been a hothouse for future Wallabies coaches over the last 30 years, with five of the last nine having affiliations to the Galloping Greens.

Dwyer was the first, followed by Greg Smith, Jones, Ewen McKenzie and Cheika.

Earlier this week, Jones credited Randwick with shaping his early rugby philosophies as he held court in a media conference at the England team hotel, just a few hundred metres from the club’s Coogee Oval home.

“The experiences I had at Randwick playing with some of the best players in the world, (David) Campese, Mark Ella, Glen (Ella) when he trained, (Simon) Poidevin, you got to know what rugby players can be,” Jones said.

“For me, I hope that I coach to that standard all the time, that I don’t drop below that standard.

“I had some great coaches myself in Bob Dwyer and Jeff Sayle and they taught me a lot about the game. Some of it on the field, some of it off the field.”

Adding to the Randwick flavour surrounding Saturday’s game, one of their most famous sons, five-eighth Mark Ella, conducted the eve-of-Test formality of presenting the Wallabies with their jerseys.