In a brief reign, Eddie Jones has done untold damage to Australian rugby.
Jones has left the Wallabies coachless, abandoning his post after just 10 months to duck the fallout in November of what is sure to be a scathing review into the 2023 World Cup fiasco. It leaves Rugby Australia to find a coach willing and able to sift through the rubble and build a squad capable of restoring pride in the gold jersey at the 2027 World Cup on home soil.
Jones has left the Wallabies leaderless, having churned and burned six different captains in his nine Tests in charge yet empowered none for leadership going forwards. Australian rugby needs to appoint a permanent captain and spiritual leader, someone who projects strength, decency and honour on field and whose face and feats can sell tickets off it.
Jones has left players leaderless, having exiled loyal servants, spurned others who fled for kinder postings overseas and scarred the lambs he sent to the World Cup slaughterhouse. Those who stayed and trusted Jones to guide their careers have been abandoned, while he never even bothered to meet the women’s side he was to mentor and take professional by 2029.
And Jones has made Rugby Australia look clueless. By rushing to give him the reins to the men’s and women’s program only to have him decimate the former and ignore the latter, RA have delivered disaster to player morale, disillusionment to long-suffering fans and greatly devalued rugby’s brand for all current and future sponsors and broadcasters.
All these parties, and the media Jones belittled and blamed, have a right to feel betrayed.
Doubly so if media reports are proven correct that he was interviewing for the Japan job even before Australia’s World Cup campaign got under way. It leaves RA in an invidious position: they rolled the dice on Jones and lost. How can they now win back trust?
Desperate as they are, RA must be patient and smart in finding the next Wallabies coach.
Dan McKellar is the man most likely. He has more than 20 years coaching experience in Ireland, Japan and Australia, where he led teams in Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane competitions. After taking over the ACT Brumbies in 2018, the 47-year-old north Queenslander turned them into the No 1 team in the country on the back of a uniquely weaponised rolling maul.
Unlike Jones’s motley coaching crew of NRL and AFL acolytes, McKellar has both the soft skills to unite all Australian rugby’s greatest minds and the hard edge to galvanise players. If RA can bring the states under a centralised roof and woo David Nucifora back from Ireland to run it after his contract ends in 2024, the Wallabies may yet rise from the ruins Jones left.
McKellar cannily smelled bedlam on the breeze when Jones was appointed in January. The former Wallabies forwards coach and senior assistant to Dave Rennie for two years is now three months into a three-year deal with top English Premiership side Leicester Tigers but it’s believed his contract has an exit clause if RA offers him the job as Wallabies head coach.
The next leading contender is Stephen Larkham, 49, the 102-Test former Wallaby fly-half. He and McKellar have shadowed each other in the Australian Capital Territory and Australian coaching ranks for the last five years. Larkham was Michael Cheika’s senior assistant for the 2015 World Cup and was pivotal in their Rugby Championship victory and run to the World Cup final that year.
When 2018-19 brought poor results, Larkham was scapegoated and sacked. Embittered, he left Australia for three years to coach the Irish provincial side Munster. When he returned last year to take the reins from McKellar at the Brumbies and boldly lead them to the semi-finals, insiders noted Larkham had vastly improved communication and man management skills.
As a player, Larkham was an anomaly – skinny and shy yet determined to run. He embodied the “Wallaby way” of attacking rugby which RA believes can resurrect the game: a brave and brilliant tactician who ghosted Australia to an era of dominance with sublime skills and calm. These qualities, and the patience and belief they sow, are what Australia desperately needs.
They also need fire and brimstone and there’s a back-to-the-future contender who brings it: Cheika, the ex-Wallabies boss and current Argentina coach. The 56-year-old maverick just led Los Pumas to a World Cup semi-final after wins over New Zealand, Australia, England and Scotland in 16 Tests and 15 months in charge and is now out of contract.
A second serving of Cheika may not appeal to RA now that the second Eddie Jones era has gone bung. Either way, they must write off Jones as a hospital pass – a gift that blows up in your face – and act. The 2025 British and Irish Lions tour and 2027 World Cup will make or break rugby in Australia. To win back hearts and minds, they first need to find a coach with plenty of both.
