'100 per cent I'm coaching well': Jones fights corner at debrief
Eddie Jones insisted on Sunday morning from Paris that his England team are just “three per cent off” where they need to be to become successful, adding that he “100 per cent” believes he is currently coaching well despite a second successive Guinness Six Nations campaign that delivered just two wins in five matches.
It was last Thursday morning – March 17 – when a note was circulated via email by the RFU that Jones would host an 8am local time Zoom call on Sunday morning to debrief the media on his latest Six Nations, the seventh of his lengthy tenure at the England helm.
This access turned out to be far more enlightening than what took place less than an hour after the 25-13 Stade de France loss, Jones refusing to answer questions over his future after England signed off on a second successive two-wins-from-five matches campaign.
“That is not a question I need to answer,” he said at the time about a position he is contracted in through to the end of the 2023 World Cup. “I just do my job. It’s a question for other people to answer. I am not even thinking about that.”
Fronting the media again some eight hours later in an effort to control the negative narrative following his England team’s third campaign in five years where just two matches were won, Jones continued to insist his future wasn’t a topic that he needed to address.
“That’s not a question I need to answer. The only thing I am focusing on now is preparing for Australia,” he reiterated, looking ahead to 16 weeks’ time when the three-Test series versus the Wallabies opens for England in Brisbane on July 9.
Post-game Jones had suggested his performance as head coach hadn’t been good enough, stating: “I obviously haven’t done a good enough job, I accept that.” However, that position was sharply revised in the cold light of day on Sunday morning, Jones instead insisting he is coaching well and that his team is very much on an upward trajectory.
“Am I pleased with the job I am doing? I am not pleased with the results. Do I think I am coaching well? 100 per cent I think I am coaching well and sometimes you don’t get the results. I have coached for long enough to know this is all part of rebuilding a team and rebuilding a team at the international level is a complex and intriguing project.
“Particularly when you are coaching a team like England where the expectation is so high you don’t get any latitude when you are bringing young players through. They tend to be more inconsistent as they learn their craft at international level but I couldn’t be more excited about the prospects for this team.”
Does Jones plan on meeting with RFU CEO Bill Sweeney in the coming week? “That is not my concern,” he continued regarding his status as England boss. “My concern is to coach the team really well and the only thing I am worried about now is preparing for Australia.”
Did he have a message, though, for England fans dejected with this year’s results? “I only have one forum and that is you guys, so I am doing my best now,” he quipped about getting the upbeat message out there that all is far from lost for his team.
“They [the fans] have got to have some faith. I have done a reasonable job for England over the last seven years. We are going through a period now where we are rebuilding the team and it takes time. Look at the French team, it took them three years to win the championship.
“We have rebuilt the side from the last Six Nations. I think the progress is very positive. The results aren’t the results that we would like, we would all like to be winning tournaments and we would all like to be at the top of the table. We are not quite good enough to do that now but within the next twelve to 14 months when we prepare for the World Cup we will be.”
Sipping coffee and wearing an England tracksuit on the breakfast time call with in excess of 25 journalists listening in, Jones went on to explain that his dawn message to the 28 players with him in Paris before they headed home would be very different from the cull he signposted at a brutal morning meeting in Dublin twelve months ago following a campaign-ending loss to Ireland.
“Completely different situation, mate,” he reckoned. “I can’t question the effort and spirit of the team. I thought throughout the Six Nations it was outstanding but there are areas of our game we need to improve and there is probably a three per cent gap between where we are and where we need to be.
“That three per cent comes from a lot of hard work, a lot of dedicated focus work in certain areas of our game, certain areas to build in our game and if we do that we are going to be in a good position. So much more positive for England than twelve months ago.”
What areas does that three per consist of? “I don’t have the exact answers right at this moment but if I look at the Six Nations as a whole one of the things we did really well was attack well up until the 22 and then our attack breaks down consistently around that 22.
“It was too consistently turned over whether the attack line thickens and our support play wasn’t good enough, so we definitely need to improve our support play and we need to improve our finishing.
“If I just look at yesterday’s game we got in France’s 22 seven times, they got in our 22 five times but they executed at 80 per cent, we executed at about 45 per cent and that is the difference in the scoreline. So how do we improve that finishing?
“Again, it comes through some hard work. We have got a nine, ten and 15 that have played 26 tests between them and they will be much better for this learning experience and we have got to make sure we keep faith in them because they have got great potential.
“We didn’t get the results and we would have liked to have been higher than third. Our aim was to win the tournament but there is also a lot of things to be positive about. The development of the team is going in the right direction, with a number of good young players coming through.
“The amount that the players have learnt during the tournament is immense and I have never been so excited about the development of the team.
“We have got eleven Tests before the World Cup and if you look at that, that means Freddie (Steward) and guys like that, Marcus (Smith) and Harry Randall are going to increase their Test experience by 100 per cent in that period so there is a great learning experience for them. The timing for our team going to the World Cup is very good, very good.”
Comments on RugbyPass
Jake White is a brilliant coach and a master in the press. This is another masterclass in media relations and PR but its also a very narrow view with arguments that dont always hold water. White wants his team to win, he wants the best players in SA and wants his team competitive. You however have to face up to the reality of a poor exchange rate and big clubs with big budgets. SA Rugby cant compete and unless it can find more money SA players will keep leaving regardless of Springbok eligibility and this happened in 2015 - 2017. Also rugby is not cricket. Cricket has 3 formats and T20 cricket is where the money is at. When it comes to club vs country the IPL is king but that wont happen because the international calendar does not clash with the club calendar in rugby. So the argument about rugby going down the same path as cricket is really a non-starter
13 Go to commentsNZ rugby seem not to have learnt anything from professional rugby. Super rugby was dying and SA left before they died with the competition. SA rugby did a u turn on their approach to international players playing overseas and such players are now selected for Bok teams. As much as each country would love to retain their players playing in local competitions, this is the way the world is evolving my friends. Move with it or stay 20 years behind the times. One more thing. NZ rugby hierarchy think they are the big cheese. Take a more humble approach guys. You do not seem to have your players best interests at heart.
3 Go to commentsBeaches? In Cardiff? Where?
1 Go to commentsHe is right , the Crusaders will be a threat. Scott Barrett, ( particularly), Fergus Burke , Codie Taylor, ( from sabbatical) etc due back soon for the Crusaders. There are others like Zach Gallagher too. People can right the Crusaders off, Top 8 , here we come !!
1 Go to commentsWe will always struggle for money to match the other sides but the least the WRU can do is invest properly in Welsh rugby. Too much has been squandered on vanity projects like the hotel and roof walk amongst others which will never see a massive return. Hanging the 4 pro sides out to dry over the last decade is now coming back to bite the WRU financially as well as on the pitch. You reap what you sow.
1 Go to commentsWhat do you get if you cross a doctor with a fish? A plastic sturgeon
14 Go to commentsWhat happened to feleti Kaitu’u? Hasnt played in a while right?
1 Go to commentsGregor I just can’t agree with you. You are trying to find something that just isn’t there. Jordie Barrett has signed until 2028. By the end of that he would have spent probably 11-12 years on Super Rugby and you say he can’t possibly have one season playing somewhere else. It is absurd. What about this scenario, the NZR play hard ball and he decides to leave and play overseas. How would that affect the competition. There seems to be an agenda by certain journalists to push certain agendas and don’t like it when it’s not to their liking. I fully support the NZR on this. Gregor needs to get a life.
3 Go to commentsHope he stays as believe he can do a great job.
1 Go to commentsMake what step up? Manie has a World Cup winner’s medal around his neck and changed the way the Springboks can play. He doesn’t have anything to prove to anyone. The win record of the Boks with him in the team is tremendous. Sacha can be wonderful and I hope he has a very succesful Bok career, but comparing him to Manie in terms of the next Bok flyhalf is very strange. Manie is the incumbent (not the next) and doing pretty incredibly.
1 Go to comments00 😍 U
1 Go to commentsSabbaticals have helped keep NZ’s very best talent in the country on long term deals - this fact has been left out of this article. Much like the articles calling to allow overseas players to be selected, yet can only name one player currently not signed to NZR who would be selected for the ABs. And in the entire history of NZ players leaving to play overseas, literally only 4 or 5 have left in their prime as current ABs. (Piatau, Evans, Hayman, Mo’unga,?) Yes Carter got an injury while playing in France 16 years ago, but he also got a tournament ending injury at the 2011 World Cup while taking mid-week practice kicks at goal. Maybe Jordie gets a season-ending injury while playing in Ireland, maybe he gets one next week against the Brumbies. NZR have many shortcomings, but keeping the very best players in the country and/or available for ABs selection is not one of them. Likewise for workload management - players missing 2 games out of 14 is hardly a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Again let’s use some facts - did it stop the Crusaders winning SR so many times consecutively when during any given week they would be missing 2 of their best players? The whole idea of the sabbatical is to reward your best players who are willing to sign very long term deals with some time to do whatever they want. They are not handed out willy-nilly, and at nowhere near the levels that would somehow devalue Super Rugby. In this particular example JB is locked in with NZR for what will probably (hopefully) be the best years of his career, hard to imagine him not sticking around for a couple more after for a Lions tour and one more world cup. He has the potential to become the most capped AB of all time. A much better outcome than him leaving NZ for a minimum of 3 years at the age of 27, unlikely to ever play for the ABs again, which would be the likely alternative.
3 Go to commentsJake White talks more sense than anything I've read in the last 5 years. Hope someone's listening.
13 Go to commentsThe Springboks tried going down the road of only picking home-based players and it was an unmitigated disaster in 2016 and 2017. Picking overseas-based players has been one of the main reason the Boks have done so well since 2018, not only because of the quality Rassie could call on, but because of the knowledge and experience those players brought into camp from England, France and Japan. With some of the big names playing abroad it also gave younger players in SA the chance to break through at franchise level. Would we have seen the emergence of a Ruan Nortje if RG and Lood were still at the Bulls? Not so sure. I understand why Jake would want to block players leaving since his job depends on good results but it’s an approach that would take Bok rugby back to the bad old days and no South African wants to see that.
13 Go to commentsExeter were thumped by 38 points. And they only had to hop on a train.
39 Go to commentsI am De Groot.
1 Go to commentsHad hoped you might write an article on this game, Nick. It’s a good one. Things have not gone as smoothly for ROG since beating Leinster last year at the Aviva in the CC final. LAR had the Top 14 Final won till Raymond Rhule missed a simple tackle on the excellent Ntamack, and Toulouse reaped the rewards of just staying in the fight till the death. Then the disruption of the RWC this season. LAR have not handled that well, but they were not alone, and we saw Pau heading the Top 14 table at one stage early season. I would think one of the reasons for the poor showing would have to be that the younger players coming through, and the more mature amongst the group outside the top 25/30, are not as strong as would be hoped for. I note that Romain Sazy retired at the end of last season. He had been with LAR since 2010, and was thus one of their foundation players when they were promoted to Top 14. Records show he ended up with 336 games played with LAR. That is some experience, some rock in the team. He has been replaced for the most part by Ultan Dillane. At 30, Dillane is not young, but given the chances, he may be a fair enough replacement for Sazy. But that won’be for more than a few years. I honestly know little of the pathways into the LAR setup from within France. I did read somewhere a couple of years ago that on the way up to Top 14, the club very successfully picked up players from the academies of other French teams who were not offered places by those teams. These guys were often great signings…can’t find the article right now, so can’t name any….but the Tadgh Beirne type players. So all in all, it will be interesting to see where the replacements for all the older players come from. Only Lleyd’s and Rhule from SA currently, both backs. So maybe a few SA forwards ?? By contrast, Leinster have a pretty clear line of good players coming through in the majority of positions. Props maybe a weak spot ? And they are very fleet footed and shrewd in appointing very good coaches. Or maybe it is also true that very good coaches do very well in the Leinster setup. So, Nick, I would fully concurr that “On the evidence of Saturday’s semi-final between the two clubs, the rebuild in the Bay of Biscay is going to take longer than it is on the east coast of Ireland”
11 Go to commentsWhat was the excuse for the other knockout blowouts then? Does the result not prove the Saints were just so much better? Wise call to put your eggs in one basket when you’ve got 2 comps simultaneously finishing.
39 Go to commentsReally hope Kuruvoli and his partner rock the Canes.
1 Go to commentsI wonder what impact Samson has had on their attack, as the team seems less prone to trundle it up the middle, take the tackle and then trundle it up again. I lost faith in the coach last year as the Rebelss looked like a 2nd/3rd rate South African team. I also disliked Gordon standing back, often ignored as the forward battle went on and on. Maybe its our Aussie way of not getting off our A***’s until the enemy is at the gate.
86 Go to comments