Eddie Jones joked about signing Nathan Cleary - but he might be the only man who can save the Wallabies

Hunkered under cover from the rain at Coogee Oval on Tuesday morning, something strange was happening.

It wasn’t Eddie Jones’ press conference that was unusual – it was who had come along to cover it.

To his left stood the regular crowd, the rugby union journalists, or at least, the ones who are not still in France covering the rest of the World Cup.

To his right were the rugby league journalists, those seconded to Wallabies duty to cover for colleagues absent in Europe, or because they expected a resignation, or both.

In front were the TV cameras, far more of them than usual, so many that it was remarked upon within the media conference that this was the biggest press pack Jones has addressed since his so-far ill-fated return to the top job last year.

Once the nuts and bolts had been covered off the top – he’s staying, in case you missed it – the questions, duly, were equally strange.

From the union side were detailed, technical interrogations of the World Cup and where it had gone wrong, the age profile of the squad and the state of rugby union in this country more broadly regarding the structures of Rugby Australia and how it interacts with member states.

From the league side, it was, understandbly, slightly less specific. Where does Joseph Suaalii fit in? What about Nathan Cleary? What happened with Angus Crichton?

In the end, both sides were answered, Eddie cracked some jokes and it seemed everyone got what they wanted out of the occasion. The presser lead the sports section of the evening news, rarified air for rugby union in Australia in 2023.

Wallabies head coach Eddie Jones speaks to the media during a Rugby Australia press conference at Coogee Oval on October 17, 2023 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)

Amid it all was one great unasked question: is Eddie Jones bigger than the Wallabies now?

At one point, he listed all the young players that he had chosen ahead of Michael Hooper and Quade Cooper, and the thought occurred that none of them were remotely famous. If they were stood in the middle of Parramatta, barely anyone would know who they were.

Then, Jones was asked about poaching Nathan Cleary to rugby union, which he fobbed off with a characteristically disarming line about driving straight from Coogee to Penrith to sign him up.

Beneath the charisma was a serious point. Cleary is more famous than any of the Wallabies. That’s not a massive issue, because he’s the best player of his generation and just dominated the NRL Grand Final.

But whenever Joseph Suaalii joins – this year, next, or the year after – he’ll immediately be the most famous Wallaby player, which is a cause for major concern because he’s not the best player of his generation, he’s a middling-to-good winger who has already been replaced by the constant pipeline of talent that feeds into rugby league.

At the moment, Eddie Jones is currently the most famous thing about the Wallabies, the only personality they have and the only reason they’re in the paper at all.

Were he someone else, the catastrophic World Cup performance would have got him sacked and in all likelihood, the results that got him sacked from England could have precluded him getting the job in the first place.

Yet here we were, discussing how it was a good thing that he was staying on. The union journos had challenging questions about the future of their game, but the league side were proving how deep a hole they were in, because we were only there for the Eddie show. 

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – OCTOBER 01: Nathan Cleary of the Panthers poses with the Provan-Summons Trophy after winning the 2023 NRL Grand Final match between Penrith Panthers and Brisbane Broncos at Accor Stadium on October 01, 2023 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)

If it had been Dave Rennie, or some new coach, two thirds of the assembled media would have been somewhere else.

That’s why the Nathan Cleary comments matter. The policy of buying rugby league players isn’t done because they’ll help the Wallabies win – that, if it happens, would just be a bonus. It’s about making the Wallabies relevant. 

That, to this outsider at least, seems to be why Jones was made coach in the first place and why he remains it now. Australians love a winning team, but they need to know games are actually happening first.

Cleary is already modern great at the age of 26, but to think that he’d be a better playmaker in rugby union than someone who has played it their entire life is pretty fanciful. 

He’s got the talent, sure, but you can’t pick up experience quickly and past evidence with cross-code transfers would suggest that it would be a long shot.

As was the case with Suaalii, it would also send out a huge message to those that have chosen to stick with union that, really, they don’t matter that much. 

The financial cost to lure Nathan over would be astronomical, and the political cost perhaps even higher.

It’s so high that it might suit Rugby Australia to keep mentioning his name, as they did for a long time with the ultimately fruitless campaign to bring Andrew Johns over in the mid-2000s, rather than actually signing him.

It speaks to the reflected glory that Hamish McLennan is left to deal with. 

Jones is a reflection of a time they were truly popular in Australia, to which they would like to return.

He’s not the best Australian coach out there – especially after Michael Cheika qualified for another semi-final – but he is the most marketable.

Nathan Cleary isn’t the best halfback they could find, either, but he would also be the most marketable. His debut would outrate any Wallabies game for years.

With Jones staying on, they have gone all-in on marketability over results. The more chat there is about poaching league players, the more it confirms how far they have fallen.

They chased Johns from a position of strength, but with Cleary – or Suaalii or Crichton – it’s out of desperation. England and New Zealand have plenty of great league players they could go for, but don’t need to.

The Wallabies just burned a World Cup with a highly favourable draw in pursuit of having a better team in 2027 – at least that appeared to be the gist of what Jones was saying. 

Jones pontificated on the structure of the game, but the impact of that within the timeframe before Australia hosts the next World Cup remains to be seen.

His comments on the women’s game – of which he is, nominally at least, also in charge – were borderline derisory, calling it a “secondary issue” and suggesting that he wouldn’t be travelling to New Zealand to watch the Wallaroos upcoming matches.

That is a travesty given that the Wallaroos are hopelessly underpaid, and are thus hemorrhaging their best players to the NRLW. 

At a time when women’s football has just captivated the nation, it sends entirely the wrong message. 

The Wallaroos, too, have a home World Cup on the horizon, and will likely need to poach players back from league to stand a chance. Hopefully Cleary’s agent has Tamika Upton’s phone number.

The whole Coogee press conference provided a convenient metaphor for the Wallabies set-up under Jones. 

As he arrived, he walked out into the middle of the oval, trailed by a camera crew who were making a documentary about the Wallabies, with Jones a major character within that. 

When he spoke, he was engaging, funny, charismatic and provided a surfeit of good lines to the media who came along to listen.

The Wallabies, however, keep losing. They exited the World Cup at the first opportunity, and there wasn’t much to suggest how they might win the next one. Except Nathan Cleary, of course.

But that wasn’t serious, and Eddie Jones might not be either.