Why Eddie Jones is confident that young Wallabies are ‘becoming a good team’
Australia coach Eddie Jones is confident that the Wallabies are still on their way to “becoming a good team” despite falling to their fifth defeat from as many starts this year.
With a Rugby World Cup on French soil just a couple of weeks away, the Wallabies looked to rain on Les Bleus’ parade at Stade de France on Sunday.
Playing in front of a simply incredible crowd in northern Paris, the Wallabies controlled the territory battle during an exciting opening 40 – but couldn’t convert their attack pressure into points.
Young playmaker Carter Gordon missed a series of penalty attempts at goal, and Les Bleus made the Wallabies pay on the scoreboard. France put on a show and ran away with an emphatic 41-17 victory.
“Sometimes in games like this, the scoreboard’s always important don’t get me wrong but we’ve got a greater aim than this game,” Jones told reporters after the Test.
“In terms of what we want to do for the World Cup and particularly our first game, we probably did a lot of good things but we’ve gotta get better at converting territory into points.
“We had 63 per cent of the territory in the first half and were behind 16-5 at half-time, so a good team that doesn’t happen to.
“We’re not a bad team but we’re not a good team yet. We’re going through the process of becoming a good team. We’ve just got to keep believing, keep working hard and it’ll come.
“It might be in two weeks’ time against Georgia, it might be three weeks against Fiji, might be four weeks against Wales, might be five weeks against Portugal, we don’t know when it’s going to come.”
The Wallabies started their new dawn under coach Jones with a heavy defeat to world champions South Africa in Pretoria to open their Rugby Championship campaign.
Losses on Australian soil to Argentina and New Zealand followed, and finally a heartbreaking defeat to arch-rivals the All Blacks in Dunedin at the start of this month.
With an 0-4 record under Jones, the coach made some bold changes ahead of the Test with France and the World Cup. There was no room for Michael Hooper and Quade Cooper in Australia’s 33-man squad.
The Wallabies went in a new direction by picking 25 players who have never played at a World Cup.
This young squad showed plenty of promise against Les Bleus, sure, but will still go into rugby’s showpiece event with a record of zero wins and five losses.
“Within the camp we’ve got a fair of confidence,” Jones added. “Obviously we’d like to have a better win-loss record.
“We’ve taken away all the leadership that was there previously, we’ve got a new leadership team in place, we’re trying to play a different way and the results haven’t been good.
“I’m not hiding away from that but we do have a longer-term plan in terms of the World Cup and that’s what we’re here for.”
Comments on RugbyPass
“While Sotutu should start at No.8 for the All Blacks against England, but it’s only in that arena that he can prove just how good he really is.” And that my friends is where simply hasnt shone despite multiple opportunities. Even in this performance you can see what did him in in the test arena..he almost always still runs at the opposition almost ramrod upright making him easier to stop than it should be.
1 Go to commentsShould have been 0-0 and a message from SR CEO to both teams - “don’t worry about turning up next year”.
3 Go to commentsGreat work Owen Franks. A great of this team, scoring his first try for the Crusaders since 2010.He was beaming, justifiably. A fine win, he and the rest did the job up front.
1 Go to commentsDanny Care. Lang in die tand.
1 Go to commentsBig empty stadium does nothing for atmosphere but munster are playing well with solid performance
1 Go to commentsYes, Fiji can win the World Cup! With that belief plus their christian faith🙏 and hard work it is achievable. Great article. Ian Duncan Fiji resident 1981-84
2 Go to commentsInteresting comments about Touch. England’s hosting the Touch World Cup this year and the numbers have exploded since their last World Cup in 2019, something like 70% more teams and 40 nations taking part. And England Touch have made a big thing about how many universities are in their BUCS University Touch Championship as well as Sport England membership. Can only see this growing even more domestically as more people become aware of it
10 Go to comments“Cortez Ratima is light years ahead of anyone on current form, while TJ Perenara has also skyrocketed into contention following the unfortunate injury to the talented Cam Roigard.” At last some sanity. Hitherto so many pundits have been wittering on about Finlay Christie to the point one wondered if they were observing a FC in a parallel universe where the FC they saw wasnt just the mediocre Shayne Philpott project of Fosters hapless AB reign in the real world. Ratima, Perenara and Fakatava are the ONLY logical 9s for Razor now Roigard is crocked.
3 Go to commentsThis game was just as painful as the Hurricanes game. It was real fork-in-the-eye stuff.
3 Go to commentsNow if they could just fire the Crusaders ground PA guy who likes to play his dance music and just loves the sound of his own voice the entire game, even when play is going on. And I thought their brass band thing of a few years ago was bad.
5 Go to commentsUnfortunately when you lose by far the two form players this season in Roigard and Aumua, you're left replacing two game changing Tanks with a couple of pea-shooters. Which is also about the speed of TJs pass.
4 Go to commentsBit rich coming from the guy with zero loyalty to anyone or any team, including happily taking a players place in a league world cup squad because well, SBW wanted to play in it and thus an already named player got told he was no longer going. And airing stuff like this, which may or may not be true, doesn't exactly say you're a stand up guy either SBW. Just looking to keep his name in lights as usual.
38 Go to commentsTamati Tua. …the Taniwha NPC midfielder. Ollie Sapsford, Hawkes Bay NPC midfielder…doing well
4 Go to commentsFiji deserve to be in the rugby championship, fans love seeing the Fijian national team play, the Fijian Drua is a wonderful idea but the players can still be stolen to play for NZ and AUS…
2 Go to commentsThe first concern for this afternoon are wheather forecast…
1 Go to commentsWhy cant I watch Rugby games please?
1 Go to commentsBeautiful shot from Finau, end of story. Gutted for Shaun Stevenson though.
4 Go to commentsThe Chiefs definitely didn’t win ugly. They had the superior scrum, a dominant lineout, and their defence was excellent once the Waratahs scored their two tries (thanks to some lucky refereeing calls mind you). They put pressure on the Waratahs lineout throughout the game, and the mind boggles as to why the referee did not award a yellow card or a penalty try against the Waratahs for repeated scrum infringements on their own try line before Narawa’s first try. And the Chiefs were slick with their passing and running angles on attack. It was a dominant performance all round, even with many questionable refereeing decisions.
1 Go to commentsWasnt late. Ref 2 assistants andTMO all saw it so who are you to say it was?
4 Go to commentsAre the Brumbies playing the Blues twice in a row?
4 Go to comments