Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

Eddie Jones out to salvage reputation back in Japan

By AAP
Eddie Jones, the Australia head coach looks on during the 2023 Summer International match between France and Australia at Stade de France on August 27, 2023 in Paris, France. (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

Tarnished beyond recognition, Eddie Jones’s reputation as a rugby coaching guru can now perhaps only be resurrected in the country where they still remember him as a miracle worker.

ADVERTISEMENT

A year and one week since being sacked as England coach, beginning a calamitous soap opera that left him derided all the way from Tasmania to Twickenham, the 63-year-old must prove back in Japan he still has something left to offer the global game.

But after being announced as the Brave Blossoms’ coach for a second time on Wednesday, it will be no easy task for Jones to regain respect from the rugby world after being widely perceived to have left the Wallabies in the lurch while constantly denying any links to the Japan job.

Video Spacer

Rugbypass TV

Watch rugby on demand, from exclusive shows and documentaries to extended highlights from RWC 2023. Anywhere. Anytime. All for free!

Join us

Video Spacer

Rugbypass TV

Watch rugby on demand, from exclusive shows and documentaries to extended highlights from RWC 2023. Anywhere. Anytime. All for free!

Join us

Inevitably, news of his appointment 45 days after quitting as Australia’s coach was met with a torrent of outrage, indignation and condemnation on social media.

Former England player Andy Goode led the charge on X, tweeting: “Absolutely never spoken to them maaaate! Nek minnit Eddie Jones gets the Japan job! A man you can never trust!!”

Jones’s performances with both England and Australia since 2019, featuring his sacking by the RFU last December and followed by the Wallabies’ historic failure to reach the quarters in France, has left questions over whether he’s mislaid his once sure touch for good.

But if there’s anywhere left on Planet Rugby where Jones isn’t going to get the pantomime boos heard throughout the World Cup – and even on his last coaching appointment with the Barbarians in Cardiff last month – it’s surely in Japan, a country where he has family roots and total respect.

ADVERTISEMENT

Jones, who’ll begin his job on January 1 and whose first match is set to be against his former charges England in Tokyo in June, has remained close friends with Japanese RFU president Masato Tsuchida throughout his recent travails.

Related

And just as Rugby Australia was happy to sign him up amid his later troubles with England, he and Tsuchida have remained staunch allies ever since Jones’s first spell in the job between 2012 and 2015, which culminated with ‘the miracle of Brighton’ as the Blossoms beat South Africa at the World Cup.

It still resonates as one of the great sporting shocks of all time, with Tsuchida even noting Jones’s major influence on the development of Japanese rugby when he came on board as JRFU boss last June.

Jones was no shoo-in for the Japan role, but even though South African Frans Ludeke had his backers after leading Kubota Spears to the national club title, the Australian’s standing as the man who led England to the final of the 2019 World Cup in Yokohama remained impeccable.

ADVERTISEMENT

And there’s a theory that, despite the turmoil that’s engulfed him this past year, his return to Japan could prove a nice fit, with Jones expected to be given the opportunity by Tsuchida to enjoy the sort of control over centralised development of the game there in a way he felt he never did in Australia.

And after the heady excitement of the 2019 World Cup on home soil, where the Brave Blossoms reached the quarter-finals, 2023 was a big let-down with their elimination in the group stages.

So the national team needs a reset – and it really does also look as if Jones’s rock-bottom stock can only head in one direction.

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

7 Comments
G
Gerald 305 days ago

Eddie is a coaching capitalist, whose real skill is creating a story around his perceived ability and then being able to market himself. He never stays long enough to be found out, except with the English side. Together with Jake White, they have probably managed to capture the most loot of any coach. They both talk a game, but never stay long enough to get found out.

B
Bob Marler 305 days ago

Last chance saloon.

j
john 305 days ago

Karma is coming for you Eddie. Beware.

k
kan 305 days ago

Yes, Jones is respected in Japan for what he achieved with the Japan national team in 2015, but the reactions from the Japanese puclic has been mixed overall, if not negative, about this appointment.
I think even in Japan, people that have followed his journey with England and more recently Australia, are sceptical about his ability as a coach.

A Japanese speaking.

Load More Comments

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

TRENDING
TRENDING Leinster-Munster: 5 talking points as awkward Irish rugby question is asked Four talking points as awkward Irish rugby question is asked
Search