England rugby chiefs are set to sign off on the decision to sack head coach Eddie Jones today.
The RFU board is due to ratify the recommendation that the Australian should be dismissed, it is understood, less than 11 months out from the World Cup in France.
The England head coach held last-ditch talks with his bosses yesterday afternoon in a bid to hold onto his Twickenham role.
Jones’s case is thought to have fallen on deaf ears, however, despite his determination to see out his contract and lead England to next year’s World Cup.
Leicester head coach and former England captain Steve Borthwick is expected to be approached to take the helm in a permanent appointment, with a deal to extend beyond next year’s tournament. Borthwick would want his Tigers assistants Kevin Sinfield and Aled Walters to join his England backroom staff.
Jones’s expected exit comes at the end of the RFU’s review into an underwhelming Autumn Nations Series, where England claimed just one win in four Tests.
England have slumped to their worst set of calendar-year results since 2008, winning just five of their 12 Test matches.
The review is thought to have received mixed feedback on Jones, with senior players, especially, remaining impressed with his coaching and enjoying the England set-up.
But critical factions are understood to have increased within the governing body, across what could now prove a definitive 10 days following England’s autumn Tests.
Chief executive Bill Sweeney has overseen the RFU review, which has landed on the call to end Jones’s seven-year England tenure.
Sacking Jones is expected to cost the RFU more than £1million, and Leicester will be due significant compensation for Borthwick but would not stand in the 43-year-old’s way to take the reins.
The RFU will not come lightly to the conclusion to make such a significant outlay, but England performance across both the men’s and women’s senior sides always feed into the whole sport’s wider health in the country.
Former Australia and Japan coach Jones still boasts a 73 per cent win record, having led England to a remarkable 22 victories in his first 23 Tests after replacing Stuart Lancaster in December 2015.
The 62-year-old also steered England to the 2019 World Cup Final, with the 19-7 semi-final win over New Zealand remaining one of the country’s greatest victories.
I would have changed things a lot earlier, if I’m honest with you.
England supporters met the side’s 27-13 defeat by South Africa at Twickenham last month with boos at full-time, however, in a comprehensive loss to close a difficult year.
Lawrence Dallaglio believes England’s poor form has left the RFU with little choice but to make a change ahead of next year’s showpiece event.
England’s World Cup-winning No8 told the Evening Standard’s Rugby Podcast that the RFU should have acted sooner to seek out a new head coach. Dallaglio drove England to World Cup glory in 2003, while also starring in the side that reached the 2007 final.
The 50-year-old believes England should appoint a director of rugby to sit above the new head coach, to boost the RFU’s rugby knowledge and coaching acumen.
“I would have three or four coaches in there who are all the brains outfit of that group,” said Dallaglio. “I think England deserve to have the very best rugby coaches around, so putting one person in charge, with all their IP (intellectual property), for me is not the way to do it. I think that there are a number of people that are required, senior people who could come together to make England a much better side.
“I would have changed things a lot earlier, if I’m honest with you. There is a pattern of behaviour that happens with England. Eddie Jones is a magnificent coach. He did it with Australia, got to a World Cup Final and then, two years later, he got sacked.
“There’s a familiar repeat pattern that’s happened here, where he has taken England to a World Cup Final and then, three years later, the results have gone so far south that his position, I think, has become untenable.”
