'He'd be a fantastic 12': Eddie pinpoints NRL gun he wants to poach - and why having stars matter

Wallabies coach Eddie Jones has revealed Rabbitohs captain Cameron Murray would be the prized player he would like to lure across to the XV-player game, saying he would be a “fantastic 12”.

While Waratahs coach Darren Coleman, a man who has rebuilt clubs and understands both the professional and amateur levels of the game better than most, believes Australian rugby can’t rise to the top by focusing on the grassroots of the game alone.

Jones, who has been in Australia for less than a fortnight and spent Friday at a fundraising event for the Waratahs’ women’s side before going to Griffith to watch the Waratahs and Brumbies play, unsurprisingly hasn’t stopped since landing Down Under.

Rugby’s current longest-serving international coach has been bombarded with meetings, speaking to the players and assessing his options regarding his coaching staff, but he has also been busy spruiking the game and calling on fans to turn up to matches.

Newly appointed Wallabies coach Eddie Jones says he wants Australian rugby to reach the “golden heights” of the turn of the 21st century. Photo Matt King/Getty Images

The Wallabies mentor, who previously held the role between 2001 and 2005 and was the last Australian coach to hold the Bledisloe Cup, said he was disappointed to hear former Australian opening batsman turned coach Justin Langer speak of the lack of interest at home about rugby when Jones toured with England to Australia last winter.

Jones, who said 2023 represented a reset for Australian rugby during his highly publicised press conference last week, said he wanted to oversee the Wallabies’ recovery in Australia to match the “golden period” either side of the 21st century.

“As the Wallabies coach, you do need to create interest,” Jones told Matt White on SEN 1170 Mornings on Monday.

“We need to create interest in the game.

“I was over in Perth last year and Justin Langer told me that we never hear about the Wallabies anymore.

“That’s something I want to change because we want fans back supporting the Wallabies.

“You couldn’t get yourself a ticket to the Bledisloe Cup 20 years ago, but now you can get them quite easily.

“We want to go through that golden period again.”

A constant theme over the past decade has been the attention to the grassroots or lack thereof, with Rugby Australia officials accused of not paying the amateur level of the game enough love and instead focusing on the big end of town, including attracting players from the ‘other game’.

Wendell Sailor was brought over to rugby by Eddie Jones and Darren Coleman says if NRL stars are worth the money, rugby shouldn’t turn a blindeye. Photo: David Rogers/Getty Images

Jones, who lured over Mat Rogers, Wendell Sailor and Lote Tuqiri from the NRL with big-dollar contracts ahead of the 2003 World Cup, has always had a fascination with rugby league.

As well as having a number of former rugby league players in his coaching teams over the years, he has expressed a desire to one day coach in the game like former Randwick teammate Michael Cheika, who took Lebanon to last year’s Rugby League World Cup.

The 63-year-old admitted he was genuinely interested in an NRL coaching role before signing on as Wallabies coach, but said no-one came to the party with an offer.

“Look, for me it was (a real interest), but I don’t know for them,” he said.

“Look, we’ve had a couple of cursory chats with various sorts of people. But I’d still love to do it.”

Jones said his love for the game developed as a child when he watched South Sydney play at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

“I was brought up in La Perouse, which is probably the spiritual home for the Rabbitohs,” he said.

“Some of their greatest players came from that area, big Aboriginal population.

“And I grew up playing rugby league and I remember it with my dad, we used to go out and watch Souths play at the Sydney Cricket Ground and watch the three grades. They’d kick off at 12 O’clock and the competition’s got so much better since then.

“The game you see of the NRL now, it’s a fantastic game and imagine coaching in that tough competition.”

Eddie Jones says Rabbitohs captain Cameron Murray would be a “fantastic 12” in rugby. Photo: Mark Kolbe/Getty Images

Asked whether there was one player he could coach from the NRL, Jones said the then-Australian Rugby Union was close to signing Newcastle Knights legend Andrew Johns in 2005.

But he quickly name-dropped Murray, the current Rabbitohs captain, as someone he would like to coach going forward.

“The bloke was always Andrew Johns,” Jones said.

“We nearly had him in 2005. He agreed to come and at the last minute, the board said no.

“Of the current players, there’s a rugby player called Cameron Murray who’d be pretty handy. He’d be a fantastic 12 in rugby.”

Murray, 25, was a brilliant schoolboy rugby player and excellent inside-centre.

He has made 10 appearances for the NSW Blues in State of Origin and played for Australia during their World Cup victory last November.

The back-rower is currently contracted until the end of 2025, but many in rugby circles believe he would be a huge target and be more successful than Joseph Suaalii.

A great hole runner, Murray’s defensive prowess and link play has made him one of the NRL’s star players.

With the modern game relying heavily on punchy centres, Murray would still be young enough and someone who could help the Wallabies win a World Cup on home soil.

Jones previously lured former Rabbitohs premiership winning back-rower Ben Te’o from Leinster to Worcester in 2016. He was capped 20 times for England under Jones.

NSW Waratahs coach Darren Coleman says rugby can’t succeed by focusing only on the top or the bottom, but rather both at the same time. Photo: Getty Images

Waratahs coach Coleman, who grew up playing rugby league before spending two decades in various amateur and professional programs before joining the Waratahs ahead of the 2022 season, said both the top and bottom needed to be built together for the game to success.

“It’s a tricky one,” Coleman told the Roar Rugby podcast.

“Whenever I’ve gone to a club at the bottom, you can’t rebuild it from the bottom alone. It takes too long A) and B) if they haven’t got idols or stars you’re not going to get kids playing it.

“I genuinely feel we’ve got to do it at both ends, so we’ve got to make sure our grassroots [are strong] but as Eddie’s touch on, we’ve got to be in the top three in the world. We’ve got to have a Wallaby team that kids can aspire to and kids want to come and play, we’ve got to have a Waratahs team because we’re a big union in a big city, that’s at the top and they’ve got heroes and they’ve got the Phil Waughs, the Chris Whitakers and the Adam Ashley-Coopers, the Michael Hoopers, that’s what puts interest into the game.”

Coleman, who led Warringah and Gordon to drought-breaking premierships in the Shute Shield, said he understood why Rugby Australia would look to sign one or two NRL stars if it meant more people watching.

“The decision makers above my head have got a tougher decision than me, but I genuinely feel that if you build a sport from the top and the bottom at the same time and the roots grip down and the leaves grow up and it sort of meets in the middle [the game can prosper].

“We’ve got to put time and resources into our juniors, but we’ve got to have stars of the game and hopefully all those stars are rugby union guys but if there was a league kid and he did what Lote could do in the game or Wendell, if he’s worth 10,000 people to a game, I do understand why people and administrators make those decisions.”