There are days when Eddie Jones resembles a fiendish Bond villain and days when he could be a standup comedian. He has been coaching so long that switching between roles is effortless to the point where he knows when to press the right buttons in a Test week almost to the minute. Somewhere in the midst of everything there is a big game to prepare for but the Fast Eddie media show runs to its own unique timetable.
Thus it was that, rather than continuing to lambast his fellow Australians for showing a lack of respect, Jones could be heard riffing on subjects as entertainingly diverse as Brexit, his relationship with his wife, alternative hairstyles, Muhammad Ali, his press officer’s love life and Gareth Southgate. Try wedging all that into a lazy “Jones slags Aussies” headline which, naturally, is his genius. No one in world sport knows when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em so instinctively.
Above all, though, he has decades’ worth of experience at the sharp end of top-level coaching and a ruthlessly clear grasp of his priorities. Those are the qualities that have transformed this England squad, not whom he insults or teases at press conferences. “Do you think I’m the sort of person who worries about people’s opinion of me?” he asked at one point. Perhaps, in the small hours, he has the odd regret but every other waking moment is focused on his team winning as consistently as possible.
Which is why even beating his irritated old mate Michael Cheika again on Saturday would not be quite as much fun as winning the 2019 Rugby World Cup. This Wallaby fixture is significant, he acknowledges, but not quite in the way most imagine: “To me it’s a World Cup dress rehearsal. You’ve got to win four games at a World Cup to get through to the next stage. We want to get into the habit of winning four games in a row. Ultimately, regardless of the result on Saturday, our aim is to win the World Cup in 2019.”
For that to happen he needs players such as Nathan Hughes and Marland Yarde, starting for the injured Billy Vunipola and the suspended Elliot Daly respectively, to develop into something more than useful stand-ins. Vunipola, in particular, will take some replacing and Jones is demanding the whole team share the burden, whether it be ball-carrying, turnovers or defensive hits: “There’s only pressure when you don’t know what you’re doing. The great thing about our team is that we’re probably missing seven very influential players and we just get on with it.”
Only Jones, though, judges a player’s mood by his hair. Yarde likes to keep changing the colour of his braids, which in his coach’s book makes him particularly interesting. “Any bloke who has hair like that and changes the colour all the time is up and down. He is not the guy who sits down quietly and works nine to five. I like Marland and to me that is the fun part of coaching – trying to get guys like that to have consistency.”
As well as raising the unexpected topic of his media minder’s new girlfriend and offering his thoughts on Southgate’s accession to the England football job – “I’ve heard a lot of good reports about him so hopefully he can be in the job longer than Sam” – he was also instructive on what it will require collectively, for England to progress from challengers to world champions in the next three years.
“For me the rugby is always important but to be the best in the world you have to be like Ali. Go for those road runs every morning at 5am when no one notices. You have to have the relentless desire and pursuit of excellence. This team has always had talent. My job was to make them play as a team. At international level you are not teaching them to play rugby.”
It could just be England are about to experience the Jones era’s most serious examination; the Wallabies have picked a strong-looking side and their hosts, by Jones’s maths, are lacking seven crucial players, including Vunipola, Maro Itoje, Joe Launchbury and James Haskell. “When you’ve everyone available and you’re flying, it’s not a great test. Now is a great test for us … these are the ones that really count.” Weariness will not be an acceptable excuse: “All the signs are that we are physically at a peak. I get in in the morning and there are graphs everywhere. I thought I was back teaching maths.”
Coaching, by the sound of it, has often been easier than living for almost a year in England’s team hotel. “We’re just waiting to move into a place. I can understand why England voted for Brexit. The services here – goodness me. It’s hard to get things done, isn’t it?” Happily his wife Hiroko is good at keeping her husband on the straight and narrow. “Every time I go home she says: ‘You’d better win this week,’ so it’s simple.” Is she especially fearsome?” She is, mate. But it’s nice to have a wife with her feet on the ground. I remember when I got sacked as the Wallabies coach. I came home absolutely distraught because it was my dream job. She said: ‘Right, where are we going next?’” The whole of English rugby should be grateful for Mrs Jones’s encouragement.
