Hiring Eddie Jones for five years is, at the same time, the most myopic, understandable, and self-destructive move Rugby Australia has ever made. And they’ve made a lot of moves.
There are two very solid reasons to hire Jones (for one year for one World Cup) and three reasons not to hire him for two Cups and the long haul.
First, Jones is a more experienced Test coach than the man he replaces. A more successful coach. And more ruthless.
Dave Rennie seems to be a good man. A nice guy. Nicer than Eddie.
Just like Wayne Pivac is nicer than Warren Gatland, and Allister Coetzee was nicer than Rassie Erasmus, and Ian Foster is nicer than Steve Hansen was or Joe Schmidt is.
Nice guys struggle to lead teams in elite sport.
So, we can hypothesize that Eddie is more likely to take the Wallabies to one or two higher steps in the Cup than Rennie would have, just on the sheer cussedness of the man himself.
Read Jones’ two books and you will easily pick up he sees himself the hero: problems need Eddie solutions. Eddiefication. It’s unedifying, but it tends to work in the first blast.
With eight months before the big dance, a fiery Eddie over a placid Dave makes sense.
Jones could just decide to sleep two hours a night from now till then, run a hundred players through a mill, find the faint of heart and axe them, slap thirty five on the plane, find their most tender psychological parts and ramrod them into a fighting unit on the weaker side of the draw and end up in a consecutive losing final.
So, the first point is: head to head, Jones is superior to Rennie. He is more likely to find a way to beat his own team, England. He is more likely to know how to fix a team he owned (Australia). Just as the team which wins the Cup will be among the top two most capped and nasty, coaches tend to improve as they mature, until they suddenly don’t.
A point here: Rugby Australia cut Rennie off behind his knees, so that we will never know precisely how well he could have done with his big athlete play hard ethos, but Rennie also made a rod for his own back by not having a doctrine. It was hard to point to what he wanted to do, and perhaps the players did not know either, leading to them losing every single “revenge” Test in 2022.
Second reason this is good: Jones is an underdog and Australia is an underdog and he will enjoy ruffling feathers. He will create a buzz in Australia around union. The honeymoons of Eddie Jones are hot and heavy. Most journalists are afraid of him or in awe of him. He uses them easily as props for his play.
Rennie was a bit of a damp squib. His persona on camera was soporific. Even if his players loved him, the public did not.
There are four reasons this is a bad idea for Australian rugby.
First, the contract is too long. Jones tends to leave the institutions he heads in worse shape than he finds them.
Jones has dined out on three facts for too long: his pre-2015 World Cup results, 2015 Brighton (his team failed to qualify), and his record with England.
His 70% plus win rate is built on a 100% year with Stuart Lancaster’s entire team and setup. It has slid since. By the end, his team was struggling to score tries unless it was against Italy.
No English player besides Freddie Steward is better now than when he began.
More than a dozen coaches came and went around Jones; snuffing out any succession plan.
His relationship with Premiership coaches was legendarily poor.
He was fired because Twickenham Man tired of Jones taking the piss, announcing England would be the best team in the world, that they would never go past three phases, that they would have the quickest rucks, that it was all part of a plan, and then, just surrendering to Frans Malherbe, who Jones called a loosehead in his book, showing once and for all, he does not understand the value of a scrum.
(Yes, there would have been five or more fact checks and hard edits of the book, but it was a Yank publisher and it was up to Jones to know the difference between a Beast and a Buffalo).
Given that the Wallabies’ biggest long term issues are set piece, discipline, and injury numbers, Jones may be the worst possible long term fit.
Second, Jones does not age well in a setup. He tends to take things personally, invent narratives, and go after people who dare to disagree.
Rugby Australia’s dysfunctional ways from Linkgate through Folaufate, Cheikagate, Castlemate, and now, Eddielate are not going to make it easier to hire the next coach.
Which really top coach (meaning, not one fired for poor performance; perhaps a Razor or ROG) would take the job under this crew?
Third, if Jones does go down his familiar cyclical road of feast, then famine, it would coincide precisely when Australia does not need melodrama. Better to have hired him for a year like Gatland for Wales, and then give a new regime a full cycle to grow.
(Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)
Nobody can deny Jones has knowledge of rugby at a high level. His ability to be head man for a long tenure is not established. He may have always been best as a rifleman brought in for one shot.
But he does not seem to be the academy leader like Lancaster, the systems man like Gatland, a depth and defence guru like the Bok team, or a club diplomat like Fabien Galthie.
He may end up dooming Australian rugby for the next decade, even as he may take the Wallabies to a bloody grand final this year.
Olly
Roar Rookie
Very interested to see what Eddie does. He is good at finding young talent. I think he will be limited between now and the RWC but I think all eyes are on these young inside back options. Be interested to see what game Eddie is wanting to play.
Olly
Roar Rookie
All we can do is hope that the ducks line up. Tricky business selling a product that is not winning.
tuohyred
Roar Rookie
Bench mgt and delaying Noah's development. Noah at #12 in Aus U20 - might EJ see him as a project a la Fazz?
Happy Scrappy Hero Pup
Roar Rookie
yup...we sure are. RIP DR... you wil be missed old chap. I most definitly bought what you were selling...
Happy Scrappy Hero Pup
Roar Rookie
Nice read. Tend to agree with everything. My 3.67 cents ( inflation has been high this year! ) is that they had to OFFER 5 years for Eddie to take the job... so they did. There has already been talk about EJ having interest the game's broader set-up... the Wallaroos appoitnment speaks to that. EJ actually mentions in one of his books that he would love to take on a role in the future that was less coaching and more system management. Hamish McClennan may be many things, but stupid he is not. He will KNOW that potential EJ year 3 curse ( England 2018 & England 2022 ) ... he also knows that 2023 will be the year that the Private Equity deal is done... and the value of that will be linked, directly, to the frequency and vlume of Rugby being in the public discourse... already EJ has boosted that and an "unexpected" performance at RWC23 will obviously help that. Get EJ in with promise of 5 years.... boost the private equity deal value.... hopefully ride the EJ wave to the Lions tour... then move him into his "director of rugby" type role for the last 2 years ( or pay him out with all the extra money we have from the PE deal ) and give a "nice" australian coach a shot at the 27 home world cup.
Riddler
Guest
Eddie Jones reminds me a lot of that great Rugby League Coach Warren Ryan. The ability to turn a team around from also rans into a hard edge competitive winning team in a short time frame but at the same time rankling the officials and powerbrokers around them and even perhaps leaving the club/team in a poorer position post tenue (like Ryan and the Balmain Tigers post 1990 and Magpies 1994). The ARU want Jones to raise the profile of the sport, to Win or at least make the next World Cup final and to perhaps steal some thunder from the NRL by acquiring some NRL talent like Suaali'i. The ARU clearly banking that the short-term benefits outweigh any possible long-term effects. At this stage with Australian Rugby in the doldrums, it's a risk worth taking and I believe a positive move.
Muglair
Roar Rookie
All of that is true Olly, but I remain concerned the only shot in his locker is PE. If those funds are not invested in ways which generate vale in excess of the amount invested, then the financial future is very grim.
Mo
Guest
Pk that’s exactly what eddies got. A gift pool so guaranteed a quarter and likely semi then 4 years to build for 2027. Like with England in 2016 he’s been gifted the players. After 2027 May crash. A lot of those boys lost the under 20 so they will move heaven and earth for 2027.
Just Nuisance
Roar Rookie
Sure not saying that a foreigner cannot coach another team especially club level .. . But I would prefer that the Test coaches are from that country . I mean we have Cheika , Gatland , recent past Schmidt , Jones , Pivac …Yet two teams in particular , South Africa and NZ will not ever even contemplate a foreign head coach . Assistants sure . Probably add France to that list too methinks ..If Borthwick pans out my guess is England will not go that route again anytime soon either . But its just out there for discussion . If its a genuine debate I won’t win it . :happy:
Mo
Guest
Same Italy that beat South Africa. Boks are never an easy win no matter how crap they are. Similarly we got beat by marge and Tina but so did the All Blacks. Not pleasant but we are not on our pat Malone. Rennie woulda done ok at the rwc. I’d a kept him for the sake of honour and given Eddie 2024 onward. Eddie woulda taken that deal. Poor negotiations by ra. We’ve got the cattle in the right age bracket to have the best shot we are going to in 2027. Which other contender would give Eddie the coaching gig? Not England not Boks not blacks not France not Ireland. Scotland May never have the depth and I dunno what wales have in the pipeline but there’s no one else. 5 nations nz da or Oz will win in 2027 and Oz the only one who’d hire Eddie as head coach.
Harry Jones
Expert
Will do
Seb
Guest
Get ready for the Australian pack going backwards in the scrum, like with rollerblades! Now seriously is it me or the Wallabies have a tendency of ruin good coaches? Robbie Deans was a legend in the Saders......then we know what happened, Mc Kenzie did a miracle in Queensland, Cheika was awesome in Europe and the Tahs and now with the Pumas is pulling a serious upset after another, and is just starting...... all those coaches one way or another didn't succeed (except Cheiks to lose the 2015 final to probably the best AB team in history?) probably the problem is not the coach, but the players? food for thought.......I think they are seriously overrated in a number of positions. World cup contenders? based on a 38 % winning margin? That is not optimism, is just delusion
The Yabbie
Roar Rookie
Tony Harpers article was an encouraging read as an Ozzy
The Yabbie
Roar Rookie
Thanks for your reply Harry. All will be forgiven if Australia gets some silverware. Hit me up if you get any downtime in Paris.
Harry Jones
Expert
I agree. It’s a factor
Harry Jones
Expert
I’ll try to make him laugh first
Harry Jones
Expert
Mate, it felt like 3 was max! I’m sure a fact man like PeterK knows
Tim J
Roar Rookie
Sad but very true about the ifs Harry.
Tim J
Roar Rookie
Nooooo! Harry, since when? :laughing: :silly:
Tim J
Roar Rookie
Certainly the fun has started Tom, many more weeks I expect also.. :stoked: :thumbup: