Former England head coach Eddie Jones has opened up on the bitter ending in the role which saw him sacked and replaced by Steve Borthwick.
Jones was determined to lead England into this year's World Cup in France, but RFU bosses had other ideas after a poor autumn international campaign saw them finish 2022 with just five wins from 12 Tests. A 27-13 defeat against a weakened South Africa team was the final straw with fans booing the side off and Jones subsequently sacked.
Jones has now revealed he knew the writing was on the wall when the RFU review panel met after the Springboks defeat and the Australian felt he had lost support from his bosses.
"There was always going to be a review, but the review was brought forward, which meant my job was going to be terminated," Jones told the Mail. "That’s the reality. So then it just became a case of waiting for it to be done.
"I knew the drums were beating hard. You need a change in the wind for that to be reversed, and I’m not sure whether that was ever viable. You get to a stage where people stop supporting you, so then it’s just a matter of how they will do it (the sacking)."
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Jones was replaced as England head coach by Borthwick who immediately told his new players that they needed to improve 'in every area' of the game. Despite his side's poor form, Jones believes that he was completing his job in preparing England for this year's World Cup.
He added: "It was going wrong because we didn’t get the results. Was it going wrong in terms of what I was employed to do? No, I don’t think so, but that’s my point of view, obviously.
"I was setting the team up to do well at the World Cup, which is what the goal was. But to do that you have to win along the way and we didn’t win enough games."
Jones has now penned a five-year contract as Australia head coach and has previously fired a warning at his former employers ahead of this year's World Cup. However, he has denied reports that he was in conversation with his new bosses while still in charge of England.
"One minute you’re disappointed at not being able to follow through with what you’ve been working towards and the next you get an opportunity to do something a little bit special," Jones added. "So it’s been the extremes of emotions. Once I got sacked by the RFU, Australia got in touch about doing things a bit quicker. There were negotiations going on in the last two or three weeks about that."
