Sometimes it is the small things that betray the real story. There we were last Saturday week, in the subterranean depths of Twickenham’s vast West Stand, listening to Eddie Jones explaining away England’s latest sub-par performance. To his right, as ever, was his faithful Australian lieutenant Neil Craig, hired specifically to help Jones to cope with such tricky situations. Even a weary-looking Craig, on this occasion, had his head in his hands.
The other giveaway was the remarkable online outburst last week by David Pembroke, Jones’s long-time media guru, in the comments section on the Times Sport website. “Pemby” was alleging the Rugby Football Union itself had been briefing against Jones and publicly referred to the RFU’s chief executive, Bill Sweeney, as “slippery”. If there was a slim chance of Jones batting on into 2023 it probably vanished right there, despite Pembroke’s subsequent apology.
The final fraught bunker days could hardly have been more of contrast to the golden era of 2016 and 2017 when Jones was still the wizard from Oz. Coaches don’t win 18 successive Tests by accident. Even now, no one would dispute Jones is an excellent technician and knows his rugby inside out. Not for the first time in Jones’s rollercoaster career, though, the subsequent downs were to prove as vertiginous as the ups were sky high.
How ironic, for example, that it was South Africa who ultimately tipped him over the edge with England. It was against the Springboks that he enjoyed his all-time finest coaching hour with Japan at the 2015 Rugby World Cup. It may well have been that unforgettable afternoon in Brighton that persuaded the then‑RFU chief executive Ian Ritchie that Jones was a rugby magician and the catalyst that a new England needed.
Even now getting rid of him feels like a major risk for Twickenham’s hierarchy. Jones’s World Cup record remains insanely good. Yes, it all went pear-shaped in the 2019 final in Yokohama against – guess who – the Springboks but the semi-final performance against New Zealand the week before was sensational. Back in the day he also helped South Africa conquer the world as a consultant in 2007, while only Jonny Wilkinson’s extra-time drop-goal denied him in 2003. You would not bet many euros against him popping up in a different tracksuit, mischievous grin fully restored, in France next year.
So why did the RFU ultimately press the eject button now? High on the list was the swirling autumnal discontent around Twickenham. Not all of this was Jones’s fault directly but from the RFU’s perspective nothing chills the commercial blood in winter more than increasing disinterest and disillusion among its core audience.
In retrospect the source of this loss of faith can be traced back to lockdown when England played behind closed doors in the 2020 Autumn Nations Series. It wasn’t so much their results – they ended up beating a below-strength France in the final – as the utterly joyless, hoof-and-chase rugby Jones insisted was essential in the ever-changing modern game. At the precise moment the sofa-bound nation needed uplifting, they were throwing things at their television sets.
Combined with the relegation of Saracens from the Premiership, it proved harder than Jones anticipated to restart the chariot. If people think England were poor this autumn they forget the opening game of the 2021 Six Nations championship when England were shockingly bad at home to Scotland. Subsequently they trailed in fifth in the table and Jones embarked on a prolonged game of selectorial hokey cokey.
The Saracens contingent were out, only to be back in again. Players tearing it up in the Premiership were studiously ignored, on the grounds the league was not, in his view, a satisfactory proving ground for Test rugby. When promisingly youngsters did get picked for a training squad, they would often be summarily jettisoned. No fewer than 112 individuals represented England during the Jones era but many also had their confidence badly dented by brutal rejection.
Where else did Eddie go awry? It is almost too simple to draw a line between the departures of Steve Borthwick and Scott Wisemantel from their assistants’ roles in 2019 and 2020 respectively and the national side’s subsequent regression. The churn of other assistants, backroom and medical staff suggested a less than harmonious back stage culture. One person’s hard taskmaster can be someone else’s black-hearted bully but what no one has ever disputed about Jones is his desire to be in control.
And control freaks with a savage work ethic – even ones with a sharp sense of humour and a genuine love of coaching and the game – wear people down after a while. Eddie was always right and charming the media mostly didn’t matter, until it did. For years, too, the RFU opted to turn a blind eye to the side hustles, the Japanese coaching gigs and a sense that, deep down, he never entirely felt part of the alien English furniture.
Maybe that was the root of it: when Eddie strode in and pronounced his desire to help England become the big, strong, forward-orientated rugby yeomen of yore, he was misjudging his latest adopted homeland from the start. English fans paying top dollar did not want old school stodge. They wanted new age modernity, smiling faces and hipster-friendly rugby. And, increasingly, both they and the RFU wanted it now, rather than endlessly waiting for a World Cup Godot. Which is why, for Jones, the last night of the Poms has finally arrived.
