LYON – Richie Arnold best summed up the significant wounds suffered by Eddie Jones Wallabies in a record World Cup thumping by Wales on Monday.
“F–k mate, what didn’t go wrong?” said the Wallabies lock as devastated teammates either stopped for the most painful media commitments of their careers, or skipped the ordeal and shuffled, staring at the floor towards the team bus in the bowles of the Olympique Lyonnaise Stadium.
A few weeks ago the home soccer team suffered a similar humiliation against PSG and their coach was sacked after a public outcry. Watch this space on Eddie Jones.
News broke before kick off that Jones had had a job interview for the vacant Japan job. He would neither confirm nor deny that after the humbling defeat – just some line about not understanding the question when it was put to him.
The players said the uncertainty played no role in their performance.
“There was nothing to address. Eddie’s committed to us, we’re committed to Eddie,” said Arnold.
But former Wallabies flyhalf Bernard Foley, who was rejected by Jones along with Quade Cooper, weighed in with a spicy tweet that received backing from former assistant coach Laurie Fisher.
Tate McDermott and Andrew Kellaway said they were unaware of the rumours of Jones’ flirtation with Japan.
“I doubt with the amount of media on us at the moment that anyone saw that, in fact I didn’t see it, so I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about. I didn’t hear anything of it,” McDermott said.
Dejection for Australia players and staff after the Rugby World Cup France 2023 match between Wales and Australia at Parc Olympique on September 24, 2023 in Lyon, France. (Photo by Craig Mercer/MB Media/Getty Images)
To a man the players were apologetic and felt they’d let people down.
“That was obviously incredibly disappointing,” McDermott said.
“That’s a result we’re going to have to live with. We let not only the people who supported us in the crowd down from Australia, there was heaps of fans out there, I want to thank them for their support throughout this whole tournament, but everyone back home as well. What we’ve put out tonight wasn’t good enough and we’ve got to own that.”
Angus Bell was “pretty raw at the moment. How much emotion all the boys are showing – it’s a devastating day.”
To a man they backed their coach as well.
“I think you’ve got a guy with a proven track record, right. It’s not his first rodeo. He is the first person to put his hand up and say the results haven’t been good enough,” said Kellaway.
“There is a bigger picture in mind, I’m sure. A lot of these guys, in fact all of us, will be better for these experiences, which sounds like a horrible thing to say at this point, it feels strange to say that but it’s true.
“He’s a guy with a lot of experience to teach and, to be totally fair to him, he’s done a pretty good job at trying to teach those.
“As players we’ve let him down. We haven’t taken the message and we haven’t fronted up. He didn’t lose the game. He wasn’t out there last week and he wasn’t out there tonight. We have to take responsibility for that.”
(Photo by Getty Images)
Excuses will be made for the youthful team – a clear strategy by Jones to move out players he considered were dead wood and give fresh faces a chance.
“I don’t like the word young because it’s an excuse, particularly for this group. Yes, we are young. There’s a lot of young people in the squad, but to perform like that, regardless of your age when you’re in a game, as important as that for the country, like I said before, it’s not the team we want to be. We’ve got I’ve got quite a bit of work,”said McDermott.
“That’s where they’re going to learn, myself included. So the psychology thing I don’t think is an issue for us. But it’s been happening for so long that anyone in that seat is going to start feeling pressure. I’m proud of this group, but it’s very hard to kind of defend the whole team for that performance.”
McDermott said the squad remained united, although they face a miserable two weeks while their death is drawn out. If Fiji loses to Georgia and Portugal then the Aussies will win a scarcely deserved reprieve.
“Is it and we’ve got to be, there’s nowhere to run now,” McDermott said. “We’ve worked a lot on the connection piece of this group. It’s easy in the good times when you’re winning. We haven’t had many of them this year, so it’s a resilient group. But like I said before, it’s not good enough to turn out in what is a do or die game for us and perform like that.”
Kellaway also played down the experience factor.
“I don’t know if it was a lack of experience, I think we just got bashed,” said Kellaway. “At the set-piece they beat us, they out kicked us. They showed us how to manage a game. Pretty well every area of the game tonight we got beaten. You can call it what you want, we got beaten at rugby unfortunately. I don’t know if that’s an experience thing, that’s just a rugby thing.”
Young flyhalf Ben Donaldson had a difficult night – with some basic errors in his game.
He might have kicked a penalty for 10-9 before a bungled lineout led to a huge momentum shift.
“The lineout leaders and leaders thought we had good momentum and we just wanted to keep rolling and we thought if we could put seven points on at that moment we’d get some good ascendency,” said Donaldson.
“Everyone was on the same page there. We thought we were going to put ourselves in a good position to score a try. That’s rugby often things don’t go your way and it didn’t work out. Momentum was definitely lost. They went 60 metres down the other end of the field.”
“It’s very tough but with all these losses comes good learnings. You can dwell on it a little bit but we’ve got another game next week. If we don’t move on quick enough we’re not going to perform next week. When you lose you take learnings out of it and that’s what this group’s really good at. We’re upset and it was a terrible performance but we just take learnings and move forward.”
Muglair
Roar Rookie
The NZRU is doing as good a job there as RA is doing here. This is like "closing the gap". We have gone from world leadership in coaching and development to 15 years behind NZ, according to Hansen, in just 30 years. Meanwhile NZ is falling behind the leaders, who happen to be Australian implementing what they learned here, in Ireland. Its not rocket science, the same solutions pretty much will work today. RA directors don't like it because every year that goes by just makes them look more stupid for not acting before. Plus it is long term hard work when all they want is a quick fix for next season.
East Coast Aces
Roar Rookie
do we really want a scrum coach pretending to be a lineout coach pretending to be a head coach
cs
Roar Guru
I hear you Rip. But in this case I think Eddie is a major part of the problem and the sooner he's out of the picture the better for everyone.
Rip Atkinson
Roar Rookie
Cs i understand your frustration / unhappiness with Eddie and fair enough, you're totally entitled to it. My point is, doesn't matter if the coach in Question was Jesus... I don't believe in 3x coaches and their assistants within 12 months, period. Its not going to assist this squad moving forwards, this whole thing needs time, the players and coaching groups working together over a longer period of time. As i said above, if the RA Board/Administration were more intelligent and kept DR for his rightful 4th year, we wouldn't be having this conversation... And look what 3 years of DR did... continuity and genuine belief from me the team he'd built was on the right track.
Thom
Roar Rookie
Moffitt is Australian. He did say Australiarugby should go back to its strengths and reset to build again. Be interesting to see how storm goes once Bellamy retires. Sbw struggles with his meanings. Gatlands by play with eddy has been going on for years. Campo has always just stated how it is. Bought a shirt at his sports store many years ago enjoyed his company during the transaction. Tom decent was the journalist asking and writing for SMH. I assume that's what you were commenting on.
Filstrup
Roar Rookie
Just a statement of facts, no conspiracy or hate here. Had to browse over NZ Herald to read : ” All Blacks: New Zealand Rugby backed themselves into corner with Ian Foster decision, says former boss David Moffett” or ” Former boss slams New Zealand Rugby’s ‘absolutely deplorable’ treatment of Ian Foster” “Unfortunately NZR is actually looking like they’re a government department – can’t make a decision, don’t know what [they’re doing]. “Oh we’ll just hold a review then we’ll hold another review. I mean the reviews are coming out of their ears. They should’ve already known what they were going to do. The fact that they didn’t is incompetent” . So , yeah, none of those headlines are ever been reflected on the SMH by the dinki di or on the Roar for that matter. Instead a never ending recurrent narrative blowing crap on AR, McLennan & Co and plenty of platitudes endorsed by the likes of Campo, SBW, Warren Gatland and the rest.
Hoy
Roar Guru
I think the ABs are similar to the Wallabies in that they just can't work out how they want to play. They shuffle fullback, shuffle centres, shuffle 5/8s, shuffle backrow. They can't decide how to fit several good players in one position into the team, and they don't want to leave any out, so the team suffers. That used to be Wallaby 101! I think that is Foster. If they were to keep some form of cohesion, it would work a lot better for them.
Just Nuisance
Roar Rookie
Jury still out . Bit it also isnt in yet ...
Double Agent The Second
Roar Rookie
Judging by their line up Ireland don't seem to have many players at all!! :laughing:
Jibba Jabba
Roar Guru
And editing by foster..
joeb
Roar Rookie
We came undone in the 25th minute thanks to our greed and stupidity. Awarded a penalty near their 22 it was a gift 3 points which if converted would’ve got us to 9 – 10 trailing by a point, but nah, as per usual we wanted a converted try so kicked for the corner only then to lose the lineout, they kicked down field and as Helmie said in the commentary, “Lucky that went out.” But then a minute later (26th) they were awarded a penalty in our quarter. Did they reject the 3 easy points on offer? Absolutely not and then they lead 13-6. Then before halftime awarded another penalty they lead 16-6. We’re our own worst enemy so often and then we wonder why we get beaten.
East Coast Aces
Roar Rookie
"profile to sell the game" such a cop out. The coach isn't the marketing Pigeon. The best way to sell the game is by playing well and not behaving like a pork chop like Jones and Cheika did. If you have mates that don't follow the game you will know that Jones hasn't not been selling the game to anyone outside the true believers
AgainAgain
Roar Rookie
I don’t know. Consistent selection and a cohesive gameplay that doesn’t change week to week actually are important. Look at how good the AB’s have looked one moment and how inept the next under Foster. A couple of tweaks and it goes from great to ugly and back. Like the Wallabies, the AB’s don’t have the depth they once had and when their strategy, gameplan and selections to deliver are poor as dictated by the coach, then they look less than ordinary. I personally can’t see the ABs getting past the quarter finals at this point. But right now, this is the worst possible outcome for the Wallabies and the sport in Australia. It is quite devastating and there is absolutely no joy in watching this train wreck.
FunBus
Roar Rookie
The late, great Shane Warne had a good line about England spin bowler Monty Panesar. He was critical of him and another commentator said 'he should have learned by now after 50 caps.' Warney said, 'he hasn't played 50 tests - he's played the same test 50 times.' You get the same impression of the Wallabies. In which case 'learnings' and 'experience' are irrelevant.
Bobby
Roar Rookie
Agree 100%. Carters Super form was outstanding and he deserved to go as backup to QC. Donaldson shouldn't have been there in form, similar to Suli and Jorgenson. At least Jorgo didn't get a cap so it doesn't count to a WC.
Baz
Roar Rookie
Dan Palmer???
Flyman
Roar Rookie
Agreed Capt. There has to be one captain on the field and a designate if he goes off the field, and then you have one or two lineout callers. Its absolute BS every player wanting to dictate what should be done with a penalty or giving the ref lip and earning his/her ire.
Baz
Roar Rookie
Yeah correct. The inclusion or exclusion of different players would have only made a marginal difference. I think at present the contribution from RA is having a negative effect on the national team. There is currently no value add from our governing body. I think a combination of coaches from our own SR franchises without interference from RA would produce a more competitive and cohesive team. Not sure how to make that work but the current structure doesn't work and hasn't worked for years.
Flyman
Roar Rookie
:laughing: :laughing: :thumbup:
Baz
Roar Rookie
I have zero interest in the remaining game. I don't care if we win 100-0 and the Stan team tell us there are green shoots. The game means nothing. The Wallabies will need to look to next year however I have little faith in RA to recover from where we are at. The ego's are too large and they don't have the ability to self evaluate. Individually the team members need to have a critical look at their own performances. This is within their control. Despite a general lack of a plan and cohesion, many of the players are just going through the motions. Winning is infectious but so is losing. Building our national team on poor performing Super Rugby franchises does not imbue a winning attitude.