'Belittled': Woodward fires back at Jones' 'insulting' comments
Clive Woodward has yet again verbally blasted Eddie Jones, branding the current England head coach’s comments on English rugby’s private school system as divisive and disrespectful. Woodward has regularly locked horns with Jones in recent years and the reason for their latest collision is how Jones, in a recent wide-ranging interview with The i newspaper, claimed that the public schools system only builds compliant rugby players who can’t respond to adversity on the field.
“They are good, tough players,” said Jones in the interview. “They work hard but they only know what they know. If you have only been in a system where you get to 15, you have a bit of rugby ability and then go to Harrow. Then for two years you do nothing but play rugby, everything is done for you. That is the reality. You have this closeted life.
“It’s the way the players are educated. I have been here seven years now and I have never seen kids in a park playing touch football [rugby]. Never. Zero. In the southern hemisphere, they are all doing that, developing their skills. Here you see them playing football but never touch football. That’s the problem. It’s all formal coaching, in a formal setting, in public schools. You are going to have to blow the whole thing up at some stage, change it because you are not getting enough skilful players through.”
Jones also disparagingly labelled the 2003 England World Cup win as a “situational success”, giving Woodward, the coach at the time, further fuel to eventually hit back in his latest Sportsmail column in the Daily Mail after he initially bit his tongue over the weekend to see if there would be an official RFU reaction to what the Australian critically had to say.
“I gave myself 24 hours before I looked to respond to Eddie Jones’ divisive and disrespectful comments on English rugby’s private school system. To be perfectly honest, in that time I expected the Rugby Football Union to come out and say something. But, as usual, we heard nothing from the head honchos at Twickenham,” bemoaned Woodward in the intro to a searing column that went on to tackle Jones’ negative opinion.
SIR CLIVE WOODWARD: Eddie Jones has no right to belittle the English game. It's INSULTING. https://t.co/dlJoP4l46Q
— Mail Sport (@MailSport) August 9, 2022
“Jones’ comments in comparison seem so misplaced. They are insulting to English rugby. At a time when the game must work together to solve incredibly important issues, to hear such a divisive stance from the England coach is astonishing. If Jones’ comments were solely concerned with growing the game and finding ways to take rugby to new schools and unearth new talent, you would support him. But that is not what he is saying… To blame England’s failure to win big games on his players’ backgrounds is a total cop-out.
“Part of coaching is creating decision-makers and leaders yourself. That is just an important part of the job as the work you do on the field. Jones cannot blame the school system for English rugby’s struggles. There are brilliant people working in both private and state schools.
“Jones should be thanking the coaches at schools level for bringing talent like Henry Arundell through instead of criticising them. How do the teachers who have helped develop players like Maro Itoje and Arundell at Harrow School feel after Jones’ comments? They have been belittled.
“Twelve of the 23 players in the England squad for their last Test against Australia in July went to fee-paying schools. The other 11 went to state schools. The division is roughly equal. Rugby is a game for everyone and the current England side represents the country well, not only in terms of educational background but in social and racial diversity too.”
As regards the downplaying by Jones – the then Australia coach – on England winning the 2003 World Cup, Woodward retorted: “Describing 2003 as a blip does not do justice to what was a golden period of English rugby. Moreover, it is an insult to the players of that era who paved the way for future generations… The only reason 2003 can be described as a ‘situational success’ is that it is the only time the people involved got the ‘situation’ right.”
Comments on RugbyPass
🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
27 Go to commentsJe suis sûr que Farrell est impatient de jouer avec Lopez et Machenaud et d’être entraîné par Collazo… 🤭
1 Go to commentsAn on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
1 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusades , you can keep going.
1 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
27 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
27 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
27 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
27 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
11 Go to comments