'Fewer nonsensical cliches, less platitude soup' - Eddie's first squad fails to tackle biggest concern

We have clues now: hints and suggestions. A statement of style at a schoolboy event, and a 43-man camp squad, with remarks designed to amuse, distract, and perhaps enlighten.

Eddie Jones comes into each job with fanfare, spits sick lines like a rugby rapper, and makes himself the middle of the centre of the core of the rugby realm he now inhabits.

Last week he gave his first clear sign (or a feint) of the style he will use in France this year. He said possession rugby is dead; his Wallabies will use power.

Let us say he is serious. Is he right? Did he show that with England? Can he pick a power team from Australian clubs?

We should place this caveat here, like a long, sweaty Frans Malherbe bind: as Jones showed some of his hand, naming 43 men, one fewer than Dave Rennie named for his January camp, he stated: “Contradiction is a big part of selection.” This allows him any argument later.

He also used that old and useless platitude: “Players select themselves.” No, they do not.

Yes, a player can perform so badly they cannot in good conscience be foisted on an intelligent fan base. But to make the final six or seven cuts on a 33-man or even 43-man squad, a selector has to take ownership of tough choices and not blame the player, who may have done all he was asked to do (or in some coach’s cases, they may not know or articulate what they want).

We will work through the squad, but first to the Jones Doctrine (Rennie lacked one altogether, except be decent, be tough, and play hard, sort of a Hoosiers retro rugby film which never was quite sexy enough for an Aussie audience or disciplined to get on a winning roll).

Wallabies coach Eddie Jones looks on during the round two Super Rugby Pacific match between Western Force and Queensland Reds at AAMI Park, on March 05, 2023, in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)

Is possession dead?

The Six Nations tournament, akin to a French World Cup in attrition and heavy fields (and the presence of France), just finished with a possession team on top. Ireland carried 139 times a game compared to the French total of 111 (similar to the All Blacks’ 112 in The Rugby Championship for an Australian point of reference).

Ireland have lost only two Tests of their last two dozen; winning ten in a row on their way to a Grand Slam in which they beat all foes by double figures and a bonus point. Ireland did not rely on offloads (they attempt one at about half the rate of the Boks, All Blacks and French) or busting tackles (the lowest of the top four in the world).

Ireland is the master of the immaculate deception. They make short passes without hard spirals. They kept the ball within ten meters of their previous breakdown 55 percent of the time in this year’s Six Nations: by far the best. They build more rucks than any top ten team, but also narrow their attack in the red zone to prevent pilfer. Ireland plays tight, but they keep forming attack pods which make good decisions.

Crucially, Ireland is the most disciplined side at the moment: conceding an abstemious 8.8 penalties per match in the Six Nations, leading to giving up only 1.2 points per opponent entry to their own 22, a rate only rivaled by the Boks right now. Defending without giving up easy threes or kicks to the corners: this is the Irish way.

Perhaps this is why Eddie Jones is saying the Wallabies will not copy Ireland. Not because the Irish way cannot work (clearly it can and does) but because he doubts his current cast of characters can please the current set of referees to that degree.

In 2022, the Wallabies averaged 13.6 penalties per Test. In five of their Tests, they conceded 16 (their most common total). There was no Test in which the Wallabies’ penalties were in single figures.

Yes, plenty were at scrum time, but the majority were at the breakdown or for offsides; a total which would surely grow if the Wallabies tried to carry 140 times a game and create as many rucks as Ireland, unless Australian carriers pinched their angles in, the backs truncated their passes, and cleaners ‘took off the plane’ on time, instead of ‘landing the plane’ late.

The early signs of a sharp Nick Frost bite aside, Australia does not have good enough locks to play like James Ryan and Tadgh Beirne, yet. All the top four teams have substantially stronger, rougher, more experienced, and skilled second rows (Eben Etzebeth, Brodie Retallick, Lood de Jager, Sam Whitelock, Paul Willemse will not be troubled by the likes of Cadeyrn Neville or Darcy Swain) than the Wallabies, who sit at the level of England and Scotland, both working hard but easily outclassed recently.

Nick Frost  in action during the Autumn Nations Series match between France and Australia. (Photo by Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images)

When big men, locks in the loose and props in the tight and both at the breakdown, lag in dynamic strength, real fitness, or grappling technique, they leak penalties (and create the slowest ruck ball (like England, who averaged 3.8 seconds per ruck, the slowest in the Six Nations and on par with last year’s Wallabies and Eddie’s England).

England scored more tries with Eddie Jones gone, but conceded more yet, with a few of the softest in Six Nations history; to wit, a kick to an Afrikaner Android in space, who deviated about three metres from midpoint as he ran around and through half the English team to score gently, perfect fade unruffled.

2022 was not that different for the Wallabies, looking good on alternating weekends, but on the off weeks, allowing embarrassingly untouched touchdowns and plus-30 scores.

This is where the Wallabies still are, until a Jones Effect changes it (we see in England and Wales that it is not that easy) and their Super Rugby Pacific teams mirror a lackadaisical attitude towards try-stopping.

The formerly stubborn Force let in 45 over the weekend, the only fundamentally sound Aussie team, the Brumbies allowed 36 by the average Waratahs (one more than they let in the week before), the Rebels shipped 38 by a second year expansion team with a tiny budget, and in Round Six, the Rebels and Reds almost shared a point a minute.

Meanwhile, Kiwi derbies are proper 20-13 affairs, like the excellent contest between Leicester (Handre Pollard, Jasper Wiese, Julian Montoya) and Edinburgh (Emiliano Boffelli, Jamie Ritchie, Duhan van der Merwe) in the rain over the weekend: intelligent kicking, relentless cover defence, and no easy tries at all. It was brutal and good and only admitted the very best carries (Wiese’s) across the line.

Ireland and to a lesser extent France are favoured to win the World Cup because their national style is defined and coherent. Jones has said the Wallabies will play without the ball for most of their Tests, but turn chances quickly into points when the ball is won in the right spots.

Did he pick a squad which can play to that style better than Rennie picked? Does a rugby tribe of that ilk exist in Australia? Where will Jones find it?

Jones has named uncapped Brumbies prop Blake Schoupp and 3-Test Rebel prop Pone Fa’amausili in place of Rennie’s reserve props Matt Gibbon and Sam Talakai. The only way that will matter in The Rugby Championship or the World Cup is if seven other props fall down.

Pone Fa’amausili of the Rebels is tackled during the round two Super Rugby Pacific match between Melbourne Rebels and Hurricanes (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

At hooker, Folau Fainga’a and Alex Mafi are injured, so Jordan Uelese (15 caps) is back in the mix, because Jones says he is “big and ugly” and reminds him of Malcolm Marx. This is not necessarily different from Rennie’s list, as he had Fainga’a.

There is nothing in this list which automatically cuts down on set piece penalties. The front row stocks differ little and if it has Tom Robertson (it does) any song and dance about power rugby is a nursery rhyme, not a mosh pit.

With Izack Rodda and Matt Philip (both of whom Rennie had invited to camp) unavailable, Jones selected Jed Holloway, Cadeyrn Neville, Darcy Swain, Nick Frost and Ned Hanigan, along with Richie Arnold and Will Skelton as virtual camp attendees. Hanigan and the “other Arnold” are the new locks here (Rennie listed him as a blindside): is that a power surge or load shedding?

Rory Arnold is a fine lock but lacked mongrel against the Boks in Sydney on opening night at the tomato sauce opera house. Swain is too mongrel to take seriously; he needs a bit of pedigree. Neville may, and probably will not, get to the level of Rob Simmons. In fact substitute all their names (except Frost, who has a higher ceiling) for Neville.

There is nothing here which speaks to a better maul defence or fewer infringements or losses at lineout or restart.

Jones has named seven loose forwards (Rob Leota is on rehab). Rennie had ten (including Hanigan and Holloway). The unlucky ones are Harry Wilson, Super Rugby Pacific’s busiest carrier last year, and improved from before in fitness and linkage, and Sydney cult hero Charlie Gamble.

Gamble was always a long shot, but Wilson is a Test-style animal, ready to reload, fitter now, with carry-stopping or tackle-busting power on the line, a more likely heavy French field prospect than Alex Dombrandt, who took over from Billy Vunipola at the end of the Jones era in England.

Is Langi Gleeson more powerful and busier over 80 minutes than rawboned good hands Wilson? Was rewarding Brad Wilkin for his form worth the devastating blow to Wilson, who has a dozen caps, carried 202 hard times in 2022, and just made 100-plus metres against the Crusaders on 18 brutal carries, breaking the line and breaking a tackle six times in all, as he made ten tackles, having adopted a new fitness and nutrition plan?

At England, Jones burned through the psyches of dozens of players, turning the entire system into a circus of caprice, hammered on an arbitrary anvil, dependent solely on his whispered whims.

After his team was overpowered by the Boks in the final, Jones said he would make England the best and most brutal team in the world, using “brutal” before games many times, only to backtrack as the tries dried up and the boos flowed freely, and ended up settling with a soft number eight, a toothless 10-12 attack, and the two worst Six Nations campaigns, ever.

It was never clear what his “it’s the World Cup, mate” secret plan was; it may have been secreted from him, as well. If he had a plan to win in London, is this it (power over possession)?

Jones infamously took only two scrumhalves to the World Cup in Japan, which cost his team, and never groomed a successor to Ben Youngs. For this camp, he has named only incumbent Nic White, whose game resembles (but is superior to) Youngs’ no-frills conductor style.

Uncapped Ryan Lonergan is his understudy; on The Roar Rugby Podcast, we touted him as a Test halfback. Lonergan said he was an old school nine, not looking for the snipe as often as Tate McDermott, not kicking as much as White.

Neither Jake Gordon nor McDermott had stamped their name on the number 21 Wallaby jersey, so far, but one would think a travelling squad to Pretoria will have more than two halfbacks? Or is Jones stubbornly underestimating the role of the scrumhalf, as he does the tighthead prop’s scrummaging prowess?

Jones never seemed to know who his starting ten was at England (George Ford, Owen Farrell or Marcus Smith) and he has loaded up on flyhalves with Quade Cooper, Bernard Foley, Carter Gordon and Ben Donaldson.

Clearly, the Wallabies coach is keeping with the Joneses, having heeded my subtle advice to drop Noah Lolesio, but then went with safety-first Ben Donaldson (a Rennie protegee) and livewire Carter Gordon, rather than Tane Edmed, who I see as a longer-term field general. Maybe all this signals is a play-off-nine structure (power rugby) with a long boot (Donaldson) and a healthy Cooper the real plan.

Josh Flook has been scoring miracle tries, built on work rate, and is the difference between the Rennie and Jones eras in the midfield. However, he would seem to be number six on the depth chart, and it is not clear he could handle the likes of Gael Fickou, Lukhanyo Am or Garry Ringrose, when we know Izzy Perese can.

Wunderkind Max Jorgensen and project player Suliasi Vunivalu remind us of other Jones playthings whilst at England. My podcast co-host Brett McKay put it, Vunivalu was “kissed on the arse by leprechauns, holding ahorseshoe, surrounded by 4-leaf clover.”

So Camp Eddie will have very few key differences from Camp Rennie.

Only one seasoned scrumhalf, a new set of young “it boy” tens, no 80-minute workhorse carry-eight, a struggling League convert, no Izzy Perese or James O’Connor, and a new Arnold, seemingly to trigger what Carl Jung said: sibling rivalry is the greatest motivator in life.

A starting fifteen and eight finishers may very well yield very few distinctions between the Rennie and Jones eras.

Thus, when Jones mouths these words: “new ideas, new cars, new drivers” with “their tyres pumped up” we should probably yawn and wait to see how fast this “low possession powered up” vehicle really drives on the High Veldt in round one of The Rugby Championship.

“Work rate, effort, and intent” are his mantras, which sound nearly exactly like Rennie buzzwords.

“I’ve said it a million times,” Jones exaggerated (or should we say merely “said” as hyperbole is standard fare for him) “We have the talent in Australia but not the team.”

Is that true? It is 1-10 in cross-Tasman contests this year, with only Wilson, Lonergan, White, Michael Hooper, Andrew Kellaway, Gordon and Mafi showing New Zealand quality.

All we can really derive from this first squad is: the 30 or so Test quality players are still the same as they were last year, with the possible exception of newbies Gordon and Lonergan, the plan or style still seems more physique and political based than clear and articulated, and it does not seem likely to beat four of the teams who have spines intact from 2019 and either have more power at their disposal (South Africa, France) or are happy to take possession of the pill (Ireland) or are currently winning 90 percent of games against Australians (New Zealand).

Yes, there may be a shuffle yet, before the Tests begin, but there are precious few to use to gain congruity in this “new car with new tyres” and it is not clear teams like the Boks will really field their top teams before France. Why would they?

Jones would be better served to take up the underdog crown and nurture the talent he has in a more thoughtful, albeit less newsworthy way. Fewer nonsensical cliches, less platitude soup; he may soon find himself thinking more highly of Rennie.