If they ever met for that beer afterwards, Michael Cheika no doubt told his old mate to enjoy this while it lasts. Not that his friendship with Eddie Jones, which stretches way back to their playing days at Randwick, has looked particularly solid this year. It looked strained during the summer, but seemed to fall apart altogether in the buildup to this, the fourth instalment of the Eddie and Mikey show. Let’s hope they did meet for that beer. Rugby’s too trivial a thing to fall out over.
Still, that the scoreline reads 4-0 to Eddie will hurt. Jones has managed to transform an England side that Cheika had plunged into the depths of despair little more than a year ago, having just performed a miracle job himself on a Wallaby outfit in chaos. Cheika must have wondered on more than a few occasions this year what happened to the powers of regeneration that brought him the World Rugby coach-of-the-year gong in 2015.
It will not sit easily with him that a surface reading suggests they were spiked by that same old mate of his. He may also think fate played her wicked part as well. Having taken Australia to the Rugby Championship at the first attempt and then to the World Cup final, dispatching Stuart Lancaster’s England along the way to the tune of 20 points at this very venue, he seemed to be picking up where he left off at the start of the new season.
Jones was in town spitting with indignation about the attitude of his countrymen, as they tried to rile his new charges, the England team. Cheika, perhaps out of affection for his old mate, kept his counsel in the war of words and looked quite the man as the Wallabies tore into England in the first of the June Tests, in a not-dissimilar manner to the way they did in this one.
When Bernard Foley went over for what looked like Australia’s third try on the half-hour of that match, England looked buried. But, as was the case on three occasions in Australia’s purple patch at the start of this match, the TMO stepped in. In June, it was one of those blocking calls that could have gone either way. Later that same day, an almost exact replica went in favour of South Africa against Ireland, but on this occasion the TMO found in the defending team’s favour. England were saved from what might have been an insurmountable blow, psychologically as well as on the scoreboard.
It was an incident rich in significance, the kind we know these days as a Sliding Doors moment. Had Foley’s try stood, what might have happened to Australia’s season? Instead, as happened again here, their promising start unravelled with a Jonathan Joseph try, born out of a shambles in their midfield. And we all know what happened next. Jones’s boys went on to complete a rare unbeaten year; Cheika’s suffered loss after loss, seemingly unable to do anything right.
He should take some comfort, however, and credit, from the way he managed to pull his team out of their nosedive. After further humiliations at the hands of the All Blacks, Australia finished the Rugby Championship strongly and were three from three during this gruelling five-match tour of Europe – six if we count the midweek game against the French Barbarians. That they finished with defeats in matches 14 and 15 of an international season so long it should not be allowed will ruin Cheika’s Christmas. No grand slam tour and no ruining of Jones’s festive season.
The force has simply not been with Australia this year, where it was last. They have not slipped anywhere near as far behind as South Africa, but the latest assessment would have to put them behind England and Ireland in that hopeful chase of New Zealand. And the impression that he has been schooled by that old mate of his is difficult to avoid, on and off the field.
But Jones has had his hard times too. Seven years Cheika’s senior, he knows only too well how the wheel can turn. Cheika will not need to tell him to enjoy things while they last. Rather, he will tell Cheika to screw his courage to the sticking place and wait for some fresh falls of the dice.
If they had that beer, of course. We must hope they did.
