Another day, another curveball for Eddie Jones to cope with. With English domestic rugby in financial meltdown, it looks increasingly probable the Rugby Football Union will have to hire a new defence coach, with the incumbent, Anthony Seibold, being strongly linked with a return to Australian rugby league as Manly’s head coach.
Seibold, for now, is due to be involved with England for their November internationals but a further coaching reshuffle seems to be on the Twickenham cards. The RFU, meanwhile, might also be interested to hear that Jones does not expect the 2023 Rugby World Cup to be his international coaching swansong. “Definitely not. Well, I can’t guarantee you that but I don’t think it will be. I reckon there’s still a bit to do. There’s still a bit in the tank.”
So much for the 62-year-old’s previously stated desire to go and watch cricket in the Caribbean. For him, World Cup fulfilment will always beat a beachside deckchair so, when his England tenure ends late next year, no one should be remotely surprised if he pops up in 2027 with something other than a red rose badge on his chest.
His current priority, though, is 2023. This time next year the World Cup knockout stages will be looming in France, where Jones helped propel the Springboks to glory as a consultant to Jake White. He would love to repeat the trick with an England side he still feels can improve substantially.
For that to happen, he believes, his squad have to be ready for the unexpected. Jones can still vividly remember the sun-soaked quarter-final weekend in Marseille in 2007 when England shocked Australia and Fiji gave South Africa a genuine fright. “England had suffered a big defeat against South Africa and were struggling. There were all the rumblings about internal problems and then they went out and absolutely demolished Australia at the breakdown and in the scrum.
“When England scored a try there was a shot of the Australians and you could see they couldn’t work out what had gone on.”
Fiji were also level at 20-20 with South Africa in the final quarter before the Boks recovered to keep their World Cup dream alive. The moral of the story, from Jones’s perspective, is that resilience, flexibility, good captaincy and smartly applied power will all be required in 2023, when England are expected to play a quarter-final in Marseille if they progress from the pool.
In Japan, England were at their best against Australia in the quarters and New Zealand in the semis but, ultimately, could not sustain it. “When I look back on 2019, we just didn’t have enough in the tank for the final,” says Jones. Determined to go one better this time, he is planning potential warm-weather training camps in Switzerland and Italy next summer, with England also due to play two pool games against Argentina and Japan in the south of France.
Just as important, though, will be developing the right mindset. “We definitely got the physical preparation right [in 2019] but I don’t know if we got the mental preparation right. We will be putting more emphasis on psychological preparation this time.”
Part of the rationale is Jones’s view that the game has never been harder to referee. “The ability to adapt and create good relationships with the referee on the field is going to be crucial. I’ve never seen such volatility in the game or around the officiating. I don’t think that’s going to change.
“The game’s getting so difficult. At some stage they’re going to have to almost break it and fix it again. We’ve probably gone as far as we can refereeing the game as it is now. We’ve introduced all these TMO interventions to make it more accurate but it hasn’t done so. What it has done is to make it slower and more chaotic. What we brought in to create certainty has created more uncertainty.”
Jones also says he will be attempting to keep many of his cards up his sleeve. “We want to win every Test in November but we don’t want to be showing any tactical developments that maybe we’ll want to use in the World Cup.”
With his autumn squad being named on Monday, however, he says there is still opportunity for two or three World Cup ‘bolters’ to bolster a squad that, in his own mind, is already 80% settled. “We’re looking for players who can make a real difference to the chemistry of the team.”
The other priority is to develop more individuals worthy of inclusion in a World XV, with Jones suggesting Tom Curry and Maro Itoje “at their best” are already candidates. “Ellis Genge is probably pushing the window. Owen Farrell, Freddie Steward maybe. There are other guys teetering on the edge … but to win the World Cup we’ve got to transfer those good players into great players. Great players make a great team.”
