Eddie Jones is back in familiar surroundings. A hotel bar on the outskirts of St Albans, where the pristinely dressed waiters are wheeling out afternoon tea. Quintessentially English.
He arrives 10 minutes ahead of schedule but has already found our table in a corner of the stately Georgian building and taken a seat. ‘I noticed your bag, mate,’ he says, sharp as ever.
So welcome back, Eddie. How does it feel to return to the UK?
‘Ermmmmm.’ That familiar sound that rattles the eardrums.
‘It’s always good coming back, mate,’ he says. ‘I had a good seven years here, enjoyed the majority of it. I probably didn’t finish the way I’d have liked to finish it but very few jobs do, mate. It’s a good rugby country so it’s always a pleasure to come back.’
It is almost three years since he was sacked by the RFU, quietly sloping out of the side door of Twickenham after one of the noisiest tenures of any England coach.
Eddie Jones is back in familiar surroundings – a hotel bar in St Albans, where the pristinely dressed waiters are wheeling out afternoon tea. It’s a quintessentially English scene
It is almost three years since Jones was sacked by the RFU – now he’s back on these shores with his Japan side taking on South Africa at Wembley this weekend
He is back wearing his Japan tracksuit, ready to take on the mighty Springboks at Wembley on Saturday, but still keeps a close eye on English rugby.
‘I definitely have a soft spot for England,’ Jones says. ‘For Steve Borthwick, particularly. I worked with him for a long time (Borthwick was Jones’ forwards coach for five years). He’s a good man, a good coach. I always catch up with Steve and have a chat. Coaching chats, rugby chats, issues with the RFU. I tell him to control the things he can control and let everything else go through to the wicketkeeper.’
Jones does not stop to order coffee. He is a rugby obsessive, one of the sport’s genius minds, and flies straight into the sport’s issues.
‘Steve came in at a tricky time and had to rebuild the team,’ says Jones. ‘I started that process, didn’t get through it, and he’s had to continue that process. You can still see now that he’s going through it. You’ve got young props with not many caps. The depth at hooker is not great. Half-backs probably the same. There are some good outside backs coming through but the forwards are probably a little bit skinnier than he’d like them to be.’
As far as World Cup credentials go, Jones places England in a third tranche. ‘France and South Africa are definitely the top tier,’ he says. ‘The depth they have is enormous. From one week to another in the Rugby Championship, the Springboks could make five changes. You never used to see that in Test rugby.
‘When you go to the World Cup, it’s attritional. The ability to have a squad of 33 who can play multiple positions is going to be really important.’
Ireland and New Zealand make up Jones’s second tier, caught in a state of transition as they adapt to life after Johnny Sexton and Aaron Smith respectively.
‘Then you have England, Australia, Scotland and Argentina, who are all about the same level. Are they going to jump up or stay where they are?’
Jones has a ‘soft spot’ for his successor as England head coach Steve Borthwick – the pair worked together with the national team for five years
He argues Fin Smith should be given the nod at fly-half over Marcus Smith and George Ford, who will take the jersey against Australia on Saturday
Our man Nik Simon chats to Jones, who is always engaging and entertaining company
To have a chance of winning the World Cup, Jones believes Borthwick should back Fin Smith at fly-half. George Ford has been given the No 10 jersey for this weekend’s Test against Australia and it is a debate that Jones is all too familiar with.
‘The 10 is a key position for England,’ he says. ’Steve’s gone for a short-term solution with George this week. He understands the pressure to win and George is probably the best option this week for them to win.
‘Can Fin Smith be a World Cup-winning 10? That’s what you’ve got to be looking at. If he is, then he’s got to get experience under his belt and play most of the Tests leading up to the next World Cup. That’s going to be crucial.
‘From what I’ve seen of Fin Smith, he certainly looks a very competent player. He makes good decisions. He’s got a good kicking game. He’s a robust defender and he’s got enough passing and footwork to be an attacking threat. He seems like a very composed, mature player, so I’d be backing him.
‘I remember when I was at Warwick School back in 2015, one of the teachers came up to me, the head of rugby. He said, “Remember this name: Fin Smith. He’ll play for England”. I think he’s the one.
‘The interesting one is Marcus Smith. He was the meteor, wasn’t he? He came out and was going to be the shining light. He looked like he had everything but he’s maybe just failed to grasp his opportunities.
‘He’s still a young guy and he just needs to find the balance in his game that makes him a winning Test 10.’ Are the inconsistencies of his club holding him back? ‘Harlequins have looked after him well. I think he enjoys the freedom he has there. Freedom can be good and freedom can be bad.’
As Jones alludes to, there is an expectation on England to win at Twickenham. The Australian came under intense scrutiny during his time as head coach and believes the pressure is even higher than coaching the world champion Springboks.
In their Saracens days together in 2008, when Jones was director of rugby and Borthwick was co-captain, alongside now-Ireland head coach Andy Farrell (left)
Jones chats with Australia coach Joe Schmidt after his Japan side’s 19-15 loss to the Wallabies last weekend
‘The England job and the New Zealand job capture so much media exposure,’ he says. ‘The expectation to win is so high. When you don’t win, the media come hard. The biggest story in rugby is the England head coach being under pressure. Everyone wants to hear about it and everyone has an opinion. It’s the same in New Zealand, where you get all the conjecture around Scott Robertson not being as successful as he’d like.
‘It’s like being a Premier League coach. My mate Ange Postecoglou at Nottingham Forest got cut after 39 days. We keep in contact. I saw the rumour about him going to Celtic but I don’t know whether he’d go back there. Having experienced the Premier League, he’d like to stay in that area. Who knows.
‘We’re quite similar blokes in a lot of ways. Out of Australia but not out of the mainstream of Australia. He’s Greek-Australian and I’m Japanese-Australian. We’ve had to battle to get to where we are, both coached our national team and left to try and make a name for ourselves overseas. Both of us in some ways have been able to do that. We’re both quite driven about the way we want to play the game and you get criticised for it.’
The walls of the hotel in St Albans are decorated with the jerseys of sports teams who have stayed there. Arsenal, Brazil, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur. Jones has studied them all.
‘Angeball’ is the nickname for Postecolglou’s high-intensity, attacking, possession-based philosophy of football. England’s forwards do not have the brute force to shunt around the South African pack, blessed with speed over size.
‘Having the experience of playing in Leicester for a short period of time, I got a pretty good feel of what was strong in English rugby,’ says Jones. ‘It was about the set-piece, it was about containment. South Africa won two World Cups on the back of going back to their DNA. Not being an expressive and exciting team, but by being a hard, physical, kicking team. Now they’ve been able to add guys like Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Manie Libbok who give them fantastic counter-attacking qualities.
‘I don’t see those sort of players coming through in England. It’s intrinsically hard for English teams to play like that. That’s not the natural way the English like to play rugby. They like to be organised, they like to be methodical, and they like to grind teams down. Traditionally, that’s where England have always been at their best.
‘To play a more instinctive, faster game is against the DNA of English rugby – but that’s not to say you can’t do it. Maybe the younger generation of players will bring that.’
Jones was England’s head coach for seven years, between 2015 and 2022, and led them to three Six Nations triumphs
The Australian (flanked by Sam Underhill and Maro Itoje) looks dejected after falling at the final hurdle against South Africa at the 2019 World Cup in Japan
Jones has been a long-standing admirer of Feinberg-Mngomezulu. Now he is free from the constraints of the RFU, he can talk openly about the overseas-based players he kept tabs on. Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s father was born in England and at one stage he was on Jones’ radar.
‘We had a look at him but nothing ever serious,’ reveals Jones. ‘Someone mentioned it but you don’t ever recruit at international level. You find out whether players are available, you make enquiries, and then you leave it up to the player to make a decision.’
How about rugby league star Herbie Farnworth, who plays for the Dolphins in Australia?
‘We definitely had a look at him. He would be an exceptional union player. Exceptional, mate. Big, strong and fast. You see what Joseph Suaalii’s done for Australia. He’s as good a league player as Suaalii was and would bring physicality to a backline that England and most others don’t have.
‘With the situation in England (with rules preventing the national team selecting overseas-based players), you need a club to sign them. At that stage, we didn’t have any clubs who were interested in signing him because of the budget situation. There weren’t any clubs prepared to go hard.’
Over the course of the lunch service in St Albans we cover all bases. R360? ‘The game beneath international rugby is not healthy. You need a disruptive league.’
Would he coach in rugby’s proposed rebel league? ‘I’ve got enough with Japan for the next two years. That’ll do me, mate. I’m obviously getting to the end now. I’m 65 so I’ll coach Japan to the next World Cup and then my wife will have a say.’
RFU chief executive Bill Sweeney? ‘We sometimes have a drink.’ James Haskell? ‘Love him.’
Jones steps out into the garden for a quick photoshoot – before dashing off to his office to plot his next move
What would Jones change if he was in charge of World Rugby? ‘We’ve got to get more continuity in the game. The TMO is not giving us that. It’s giving us more stoppages, higher ball out of play. If we can get ball in play up to about 38 minutes on average then the game would have considerable fatigue. Go back and say “The referee is in charge of the game, the TMO will give us decision on the goal line and three phases back. Plus blatant red card offences. Everything else is up to the referee”.’
England against Australia at Twickenham? ‘It’s going to be a really tight game. Australia didn’t play their best team against us (in a 19-15 win for the Wallabies last weekend) so they’ve not played together for about six weeks now. They will be fresher but maybe they’ll lack a bit of cohesion.
‘I would expect England to come out really hard in the first 20. I think England will get in front but Australia have that ability to stay in the game for long periods of time. They play a very low error rate game because 60 per cent of their attack is one pass. They don’t make a lot of errors, they’re good defensively, their set-piece is OK. I think it will be a penalty goal type of game.’
And that’s a wrap. Jones steps out into the garden for a quick photoshoot and asks how some old colleagues are faring. ‘Good to chat, mate,’ he says, darting off back to his makeshift office to plot his next move.
