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SAINT ETIENNE – Eddie Jones arrived back in the Australian game amidst great fanfare. The prodigal son was back in charge replacing a Kiwi seen as too dour by his paymasters.
He was to restore a winning mentality to a team that lost close matches, wisecrack his way into headlines and make a smash and grab attempt at winning the World Cup. He was to charm and succeed and put right a listing sport that a decreasing number of his country folk seem invested in.
On every metric, on every ambition this campaign has been a total and utter failure. A first-ever pool exit appears inevitable, the campaign in ruins. The headlines have turned against him. He trusted in youth, then failed to back some of them when it really mattered. The set pieces were an issue and neither of the attack or defence systems were coherent enough.
He’s exposed us to daily whinge fests from Alan Jones.
And he’s gone from the jovial “fire away boys” attitude towards the media, of whom he demanded tougher questions earlier this year, to someone who has twice now threatened to cut press conferences short because he didn’t like what he was being asked.
Eddie Jones. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
On Monday AEST, Jones must try to find a way to motivate an Australian team which had gathered 24 hours earlier to watch Fiji play Georgia in a pool C defining clash in Bordeaux. Will this be his final speech at the helm?
Georgia were strong and brave and threw every fibre of their beings into the match. But for an unfortunate forward pass ruling from English referee Karl Dickson at the end of the first half , Georgia would have gone to the sheds 16-0 instead of 9-0 ahead. They could have won it at the death – which would have put a different complexion on the Wallabies’ match against Portugal – but fought to the bitter end – not a charge that could be applied to Jones’ side against Wales last week.
The Australian now face the ultimate indignity – they have to stay in France for a bye week and wait for Fiji to roll over the top of Portugal next week to deliver last rites on this doomed mission.
Wallabies flanker Tom Hooper – one of the few bright spots of the past few weeks, if only for his off-field performances – used a quote from the Madagascar movie to sum up how the players had moved on from that shocking loss.
Tom Hooper during the Australian Wallabies training session at Sanctuary Cove on June 29, 2023 in Gold Coast, Australia. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
“Took a couple of days to sort of grieve on that and now we’re like the penguins from Madagascar – we’re just coming out and ‘Smile and wave, boys’ and get on with the job.”
Funny line, but there’s a better one from that movie to sum up where we’re at with this Wallabies team right now, delivered by a recalcitrant chimpanzee to his mate as they were surrounded by cops following a heist.
“If you have any poo, fling it now.”
The brown stuff has really hit the fan over the past few weeks in Camp Wallaby. It’s been flung at reporters by Jones. It’s been thrown at Jones by fans and former players and media pundits. And it’s been thrown at Australian rugby by gleeful shills aligned to rugby league.
Never has the expression slow motion train wreck been more appropriate, starting soon after Jones climbed into the cab for the start of what’s looking for all the world like the worst comeback in Australian sports history. At least the previous owner of that tag – Ian Thorpe – did nothing to tarnish his standing with the Australian public when he tried to revisit past glories.
If Jones goes out on this there’s a strong chance his name becomes synonymous with inglorious failure – the threat of that might be what keeps him hanging in to 2027, or a least part way down that road.
Selections, the sideshow of his alleged dalliance with Japanese rugby, have all lead us here – the Wallabies are ranked 10th in the world and are heading out of the World Cup at the pool stage for the first time.
Jones has been unlucky – we can grant him that. He decided to build a pack around heft and power then lost his two greatest weapons in Taniela Tupou and Will Skelton.
The youngsters he hoped might play without fear and reward him with verve, clammed up at the worst times. Ben Donaldson and Carter Gordon seem to be lovely boys but in comparison to the flyhalves for the likely quarterfinalists it always looked like they might be out of depth. Perhaps Eddie thought his magic touch would be enough to transform them into World Cup standard ahead of their time, but even his assistant Pierre-Henry Broncan acknowledged the Wallabies had failed to deal with the pressure.
(Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
“All we can do is try to get better every day mate, that’s the only thing we can do. You know, we’ve got a young squad here. I purposely picked the young squad. I think they’re the best players in Australia and all we can do is try to get better every day,” Jones said when he named his team this week.
“There’s no lack of desire and a lack of work ethic, no lack of spirit within the team, the great bunch of boys. And yeah, we’re just not good enough at the moment. But if we keep working the way we will, we will be too.”
Looking from the outside, Jones appeared to be at his flattest point of the year, the fight draining from him before our eyes.
“If their needs to be a fall-guy for the World Cup then it’s obviously me,” he said. “When you become a head coach of a team, you take on that responsibility.”
As well as a team without experience Jones came to the tournament with a mixed bag of coaches. Apologists will rightly suggest that his choices were limited, but even that was of his own making. And he never showed anything but total support for his staff – even when the team’s lineout was a Keystone Cops skit and the maul was a mess.
The Roar asked forwards coach Neal Hatley, if he’d noticed a change in the boss man since the allegations of the Japan flirtations and the defeats to Fiji and Wales.
“I’m always amazed by the questions about Eddie. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with him for a long time. I see no change in the way that this man operates,” Hatley replied.
“He’s desperate to win, he’s desperate for his players to do well. He’s desperate for his teams to connect and make their country proud.
“If anything it’s gone the other way, it’s ramped up. You get closer to games, he ramps up. I can’t speak highly enough of how he conducts himself and how he drives the coaching staff and then the team and the players and the whole support staff.
“He is constantly demanding the very best you can be, not just for yourself but for the players, because that’s what the players deserve.”
Hatley said he would love to continue with Australia after the World Cup, and didn’t give the impression that Jones was ready to walk away after Monday’s game.
“He’s immensely proud and passionate about coaching Australia. That’s close to his heart. He’s gutted about what’s happened and he’s got a real desire to fix this moving forwards.”
Reporters get a chance to ask Jones and the players questions but, like the fans, are kept at arms length.
A Stan documentary team has been granted closer access and it might not be until vision that emerges early next year that we get a better insight into Jones and what he really happened behind the veil over here.
It will be a tough watch.
Maybe try Madagascar instead – less poo and a lot more laughs.