As head coach of the Wallabies, Jones would feast on the bones of the Lions before roaring on to the men’s World Cup to be staged in this country in 2027.
Instead, Jones’s return in 2023, after England had ended his rollercoaster six years in charge at Twickenham, was a disaster.
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He left trusted stalwarts including Michael Hooper and Quade Cooper out of what proved a calamitous World Cup in France in September 2023, when the Wallabies were dumped out 40-6 by Wales – yes, Wales, who were about to go on an 18-match losing streak until they won away to… Japan, now coached by Jones, earlier this month.
So how much is the current Wallaby team – ranked sixth in the world under Kiwi head coach Joe Schmidt, and beaten by the Lions in last Saturday’s first Test in Brisbane – haunted by the ghost of Jones?
And Tom Decent, the sports journalist for the Sydney Morning Herald who broke the Jones-to-Japan story, and battled through attempts by Jones – for which he has recently apologised – to discredit his work.
“It was a big risk and the risk didn’t come close to coming off.
Eddie Jones is now the head coach of Japan (Photo: Getty)“Maybe you just needed to buckle down and keep building and be more collaborative. Going from five Super Rugby teams down to four was important; that’s been done. And there is a bit of truth behind Eddie’s version of events, where he saw that it wasn’t going to work with Rugby Australia. It could have gotten worse if he’d stayed.”
“I know that privately he was frustrated at the standard of those guys that he eventually got for that Test season, albeit briefly before the World Cup. The Wales game was just comically bad – as big a car crash as Australian rugby has ever seen.
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Turinui: “I think you have to realise we are cursed by the turn-of-the-century team [Australia won the 1999 World Cup, beat the Lions in 2001 and reached the 2003 World Cup final]. That’s where our expectation will always be.
2. What has needed mending?
Turinui says: “The cost was in some individual players. [Centre] Len Ikitau is an automatic selection now, when he wasn’t under Eddie. [Fly-half] Carter Gordon, if he’d hung around, he’d be another couple of years down the track, and vying with Noah Lolesio, with Tom Lynagh and Ben Donaldson behind them.”
Australia were outplayed by the Lions on Saturday (Photo: PA)
And with Lolesio injured, Schmidt threw Lynagh in as a raw No 10 against the Lions last week.
“But Angus Bell, Nick Frost, Ben Donaldson – the guys who got experience in that World Cup – I think it will serve them in good stead. And it wouldn’t be a surprise if Nawaqanitawase came back for 2027.”
“It seems like there’s a lot of people here wanting to move on from Eddie,” says Decent, “given that he was so loud and brash and told us how Australia would win the Bledisloe, win the World Cup, ‘smash and grab’ – all that stuff. They wanted to believe in the dream he sold. And everyone would have let him have that World Cup – if he’d stuck around until 2027.”
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Read More“Eddie brought the Japanese under-23s to Coffs Harbour in April and he couldn’t have been more welcoming to local coaches, kids, talent, the community – he got out and about, was asked about 2023 and put his hand up about mistakes he made. He came to Randwick, where we’re a little biased because he is one of our own, but we also have a deep care for the Wallabies, and he was face to face with a few thousand people, trying to repair his relationship within the game.”
Decent: “I think in that little pocket of the world, people have happy to forgive Eddie for what happened. If he comes back for the 2027 World Cup, and he’s with Japan playing against Australia, I’m not sure the reception will be as great.”
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