Alun Wyn Jones doesn't need any cotton wool
On a typically grey October day in 2015, Alun Wyn Jones sat chatting to media gathered at a plush Surrey hotel. Approaching his 100th Test appearance, he was asked what it would mean to reach the landmark in a Rugby World Cup quarter-final against South Africa.
“There is always the thought in the back of your mind that every match could be your last,” he told reporters then. “That’s what I like to go on and I don’t look at any numbers.”
He added an inference that, with that figure including six appearances for the British and Irish Lions, it would represent a bigger personal achievement to compile a century of caps for Wales outright.
Jones is not a man who basks in his own glory.
Subsequent milestones – he won his 100th Wales cap against the All Blacks in New Zealand in 2016 and captained his country to a first November clean sweep with victory over South Africa in his 120th – have in turn each been treated as “just another game”.
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It is no surprise, therefore, that he let others do the talking as he set a new Ospreys appearance record, playing a pivotal role as Zebre were beaten 43-0 in what was his 233rd game for the region.
Jones was described as a “true Ospreys legend” by managing director Andrew Millward in the build-up to Friday night’s PRO14 clash and he lived up to that billing with an all-action performance.
Watching the evergreen second-row in action at present, it is easy to forget that he is 33.
Jones seemed to be everywhere against Zebre at the Liberty Stadium, putting his body on the line to help force turnovers, offering a reliable target at the lineout, linking attacks in open play, carrying the ball into crowded channels and, of course, shooting the breeze with referee JD Cwengile.
His experience in that last area is invaluable for both Wales and the Ospreys. He knows exactly how to talk to officials, offering his opinion without ever seeming to overstep the line.
A case in point came early against Zebre in Swansea.
Following a fracas with the visitors’ openside, Johan Meyer, the pair were called over by Cwengile. While the Italian international struggled to look innocent, Jones addressed the referee in a stance, arms behind his back, that was almost intimidatingly polite.
It is an approach that has been honed over the course of a 13-year professional career, and such skills of diplomacy are priceless in the pressure cooker atmosphere of the Six Nations and World Cups. It is not hyperbole to suggest that his captain is the player Warren Gatland can least afford to lose ahead of Japan 2019.
In Cardiff last weekend, during the post-match de-brief that followed Wales’ 20-11 defeat of South Africa, Gatland jokingly asked Jones whether this would be his last autumn in a red shirt.
That quip followed another modest answer about the emotion of his 120th cap. But if there is a subject Jones likes talking about less than his own achievements, it is his future.
It remains to be seen whether Gatland’s countryman and successor as Wales coach, Wayne Pivac, can convince the Ospreys lock to stay on post-Japan but if he can maintain his current form then he can be expected to try his damnedest.
The Wales skipper has played eight matches for club and country this season, all of them 80-minute affairs, all of them totally committed. If there was a Lions tour next summer, he would be on the plane.
Jones came up with big plays when it mattered for Wales in their November wins over Australia and South Africa, outplaying and outthinking much younger internationals.
Prior to the last World Cup, he had played Australia, New Zealand and South Africa 36 times with Wales and the Lions, winning just five matches. In the three years since, he has registered five victories in just 12 meetings with the ‘big three’.
Jones credits fatherhood, age and experience for his continued impressive form and the former has certainly been on display on the pitch of late as he has helped Adam Beard to fulfill his potential.
Beard emerged as a genuine contender for a World Cup place in November, and Gatland will hope that he is soaking up all the wisdom his club-mate can impart. The Six Nations could provide the acid test for that partnership at Test level.
Japan is still the best part of 10 months away but don’t expect Jones, a man once described as a “machine” by his former Wales and Ospreys colleague Richard Hibbard, to ask to be wrapped up in cotton wool.
He is a man who demands the best of himself and his team-mates, and if his workload is managed correctly there seems little reason why he cannot continue at the top level for a few more years yet.
Just don’t ask him what it would feel like to go on a fourth Lions tour. It’s “just another game” after all.
Comments on RugbyPass
Hold the phone, decline over-rated. Is it a one game, dead cat bounce or the real thing? Has the Penney dropped? Stay tuned.
39 Go to commentsTotally deserved win for the Crusaders Far smarter than the Chiefs who seem to be avoiding the basics when it matters Hotham showed them what was missing and Hannah seems a real find - a tad light but that can be fixed over time
8 Go to commentsGreat insight into the performance culture with Sarries and I predict Christie will be a fixture in the Scotland team now for some time to come. However, he is slightly missing his own point around Scotland “being soft” when he cites physicality examples in defence of that slight. The issue is much closer to the example he referenced around feeling off before a game but being told “it doesn’t matter, you can still play well” by Farrell. Until Scotland can get their psyche in that square, they will carry on folding under extreme pressure…
1 Go to comments> We are having to adapt, evolve and innovate more than when we were in Super Rugby where there was only really one style that everybody had to play to gain the most success. Have = able to? Interesting what that one style might be? I thought SA sides still had bad tours now, or at least bad schedule, months away? Those extra few hours flights have to be a killer though, no surprise to see their sides doing so badly at the start of the season each year. I wouldn’t enjoy that unfairness as a supporter.
5 Go to commentsThe problem for NZ, and Aus, is they ripped up the SR model and lost a massive chunk of revenue that hasn’t been replaced. Don’t forget SA clubs went North because they were left with no choice, Argy unceremoniously binned and Japan cast adrift. Now SR wasn’t perfect, far from it, but they’ve jumped into something without an effective plan, so far, to replace what they’ve lost. The biggest revenue potential now lies in Japan but it won’t be easy or quick to unlock, they are incredibly insular in culture as a nation. In the meantime, there is a serious time bomb sitting under SH rugby and if it happens then the current financial challenges will look like a picnic. IF the Boks follow their provincial teams and head north then it’s revenue meltdown. Not guaranteed to happen but the status quo is a very odd hybrid, with the Boks pointing one way and the clubs pointing the other way. And for as long as that remains then the threat is real.
39 Go to commentsI think Etene has had some good tuition, likely while at the Warriors to be a professional that helped his rugby jump, but he was certainly thrown in the deep end way too early. Should have arguably 20 less SR caps, and therefor a way better record that he does at his age, but his development would have been fast tracked by the need to satiate his signing away from league. Again, credit to him and others that he has done it so well. Easy to fall over under that pressure in the big leagues like that but he kept at it when I myself wasn’t sure he was good enough.
1 Go to commentsAwesome story. I wonder what a bigger American (SA) scene might have mean for Brex.
1 Go to comments“Johnny McNicholl and the Crusaders” save a Penney. Who has been in camp this week and showed them how to play?
8 Go to commentsSo, reports of the Crusaders’ demise / terminal decline are perhaps just - slightly - premature/exaggerated…? 🤔 Will we see a deep-dive into that by the estimable Rugbypass scribes, and maybe one or two mea culpas? Thought not.
8 Go to comments1. The Chiefs are rudderless without DMac, which enhances his AB chances 2. Chiefs pack are powderpuffs. The hard men arent there anymore 3. They had their golden title chance last yr and wont threaten this yr. Gone in second round of playoffs.
8 Go to commentsHonestly, why did you have to publish such a foolish article the day they play us? 😂
39 Go to comments> They are not standalone entities. They are linked to an amateur association which holds the FFR licence that allows the professional side to compete in the league. That’s a great rule. This looks like the chicken or egg professional scenario. How long is it going to be before the club can break even (if that is even a thing in French rugby)? If the locals aren’t into well it would be good to se them drop to amateur level (is it that far?). Hope they can reset from this level and be more practical, there will be a time when they can rebuild (if France has there setup right).
1 Go to commentsWhat about changing the ball? To something heavier and more pointed that bounces unpredictably. Not this almost round football used these days.
35 Go to commentsThis is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?
35 Go to commentsWow, didn’t realise there was such apathy to URC in SA, or by Champions Cup teams. Just read Nick’s article on Crusaders, are Sharks a similar circumstance? I think SA rugby has been far more balanced than NZs, no?
4 Go to commentsBut here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.
39 Go to commentsIt could be coincidental or prescient that the All Blacks most dominant period under Steve Hansen was when the Crusaders had their least successful period under Todd Blackadder and then the positions reversed when Razor took over the Crusaders.
39 Go to commentsDefinitely sound read everybodyexpects immediate results these days, I don't think any team would travel well at all having lost three of the most important game changers in the game,compiled with the massive injury list they are now carrying, good to see a different more in depth perspective of a coaches history.
3 Go to commentsSinckler is a really big loss for English rugby.
2 Go to commentsThanks Nick The loss of players to OS, injury and retirement is certainly not helping the Crusaders. Ditto the coach. IMO Penny is there to hold the fort and cop the flak until new players and a new coach come through,…and that's understood and accepted by Penny and the Crusaders hierarchy. I think though that what is happening with the Crusaders is an indicator of what is happening with the other NZ SRP teams…..and the other SRP teams for that matter. Not enough money. The money has come via the SR competition and it’s not there anymore. It's in France, Japan and England. Unless or until something is done to make SR more SELLABLE to the NZ/Australia Rugby market AND the world rugby market the $s to keep both the very best players and the next rung down won't be there. They will play away from NZ more and more. I think though that NZ will continue to produce the players and the coaches of sufficient strength for NZ to have the capacity to stay at the top. Whether they do stay at the top as an international team will depend upon whether the money flowing to SRP is somehow restored, or NZ teams play in the Japan comp, or NZ opts to pick from anywhere. As a follower of many sports I’d have to say that the organisation and promotion of Super Rugby has been for the last 20 years closest to the worst I’ve ever seen. This hasn't necessarily been caused by NZ, but it’s happened. Perhaps it can be fixed, perhaps not. The Crusaders are I think a symptom of this, not the cause
39 Go to comments