Australian rugby has had its bleak days and nights but nothing remotely as bad as this. If congratulations are clearly due to Warren Gatland’s Wales for inflicting a record all-time defeat on the Wallabies, this was Eddie Jones’s absolute worst nightmare. His squad are now staring at an embarrassingly early exit from the tournament, having never previously failed to qualify for the knockout stages at a World Cup.
When Jones was rehired in January at vast expense, having lost his job with England, it was not supposed to end like this. If defeat to Fiji was bad this was infinitely worse, with his side barely firing a shot. If the 63-year-old’s appointment was supposed to breathe fresh life into the Wallaby squad, it is increasingly having the opposite effect.
