Over the past four years, and particularly since England’s tour of Australia in the summer of 2016, Eddie Jones and Michael Cheika have repeatedly demonstrated the spirit that once led Jones to describe his former teammate as “a decent player – but an outstanding sledger”. To mention the other’s name in either man’s company has been akin to feeding a few coins into a jukebox, allowing journalists to simply sit back and listen to the wonderful sound of headlines writing themselves.
Before England’s visit to Australia in 2016 Cheika predicted that “there will be a bit of banter when the tour comes and that’s good fun because we both enjoy that”. Three years later the coaches are preparing for a World Cup quarter‑final that has come to be billed the Battle of the Big Mouths.
The friendship first blossomed at Randwick in Sydney, where Jones played as hooker while Cheika was at No 8 in a team that also included the Ella brothers and another future Wallabies coach, Ewen McKenzie. Though Jones was seven years older, they bonded over a shared status as ethnic interlopers in an establishment sport: Jones’s mother was born in the USA to two Japanese parents while Cheika’s father, Joseph, moved to Australia from Lebanon aged 20. “You’ve got to remember this was Australia 30-odd years ago,” Jones said in 2015, while coach of Japan. “It was still a very white Australia so if you were like Check and myself you really had to prove your worth.
“Back then there was a bit of racial sledging. Check and I had to put up with a bit of that when we played and you had to be able to fire back at opponents on the field. It’s probably a reason why we always got on well.”
Until his appointment by England, Jones had been entirely positive about Cheika – “I really like what he’s doing,” he said four years ago. “He wears his heart on his sleeve and he’s good for the game.”
Fast forward a few months and with the two about to cross paths for the first time as coaches of serious international rivals, suddenly he was sniffing about “smoke and mirrors everywhere”, saying that Cheika “has a lot of deception about him”, and the banter bus had officially left the station.
Rather than wading in, fists flying, Cheika largely skirted around the more distant skirmishes of this nascent war of words. “If I thought it would have made us play better, yeah, I would have got into it,” he said. “I wasn’t used to people liking me anyway. If they are not big on the way I’ve taken the media campaign then that’s their problem.”
But after England’s 3-0 win in that series New Zealand’s Steve Hansen accused Cheika of “letting Eddie bully him in the media”, and when Australia travelled to England later that year Cheika finally got his hands dirty. His assertion that Jones “has always operated with a chip on his shoulder and now there isn’t a chip because things are going really well, he keeps looking for it” was a particular highlight.
None of this impressed Hansen, who this year jokingly compared Cheika to Mickey Mouse and said it was possible to “get him emotional and take his mind off the job”.
Whatever Jones is doing, it seems to work. He holds a 6-0 record against Cheika as England coach, so it is perhaps unsurprising that there appears to have been a gentle deterioration in their relationship since they started having to talk about it so much. “When I was back in Australia we caught up and had a coffee together. We had a chat about where his team was and where we were as old mates,” was Jones’s merry message when asked about Cheika in November 2017.
Exactly a year later, the Australia coach painted a slightly frostier picture. “We’re mates from playing footy together, we’re not swinging hands down the road or anything but we’re friends. There’s no beef between us,” he said.
Eleven months on and this week Cheika was asked about the latest status of the friendship. “Fine,” he replied, tersely. “I don’t see him very much.”
For as long as both men remain in post this sometimes venomous rivalry looks certain to simmer, but perhaps that is exactly as the two protagonists would like it. James Haskell, who has worked with both men, said this week: “Eddie loves revving Cheika up and Cheika loves getting revved up. It’s a perfect formula.”
For one of them the World Cup ends on Saturday but off the pitch perhaps they can both find happiness – with a little help from their friends.
