Oliver Brown: Secret Australia negotiations raise questions over Eddie Jones’ loyalty

Eddie Jones. Photo / Photosport

OPINION:

It is striking how often the most consequential deals are hatched in restaurants. The gentlemen’s agreement that Tony Blair reached with Gordon Brown in 1994, reputedly vowing to step aside after two terms as prime minister, took place at Granita, his favourite Islington eatery. Now, we learn that Eddie Jones’ return to the Wallabies, a decision creating convulsions throughout rugby, originated in similar circumstances – in a quiet tête-à-tête 14 months ago with Hamish McLennan, chairman of Rugby Australia, at an upmarket Argentine steakhouse in Richmond. The Gaucho Pact, you might call it.

The awkward subplot is that Jones was still coaching England at the time. In fact, he was deep into one of the most important periods of his tenure, steering his team through the 2021 autumn internationals, which included a decisive win over Australia. Was this truly an appropriate moment to be thrashing out his next job? Did fraternising with the opposition, away from prying lenses, amount to a betrayal?

As ever with Jones, the lines are blurred. The meeting at Gaucho took place at McLennan’s instigation, less as a formal discussion of terms than as an exploration of whether Jones would even entertain the idea of coaching his home country for a second time. Given that he later visited the chairman’s house in Sydney to continue talks, he clearly did not shut down the suggestion. It prompts the question of how focused he truly was on England’s World Cup project in subsequent months, knowing that the same mission was his to inherit in his native land.

‘He never lost his enjoyment of a side hustle’

This is not the first time that Jones has invited accusations of letting his attention wander. Earlier in 2021, the Rugby Football Union had somehow permitted him to take a consultancy role at Japanese side Suntory Sungoliath, where he would impart his accumulated wisdom to Beauden Barrett, the All Blacks fly-half. It was a wonder, frankly, that he found time for it all. Besides his shuttling between England and Japan, where posters in Sapporo showed him extolling the virtues of the local gin, he also managed to write two books. Even on a £750,000 (NZ$1.43m) Twickenham salary, he never lost his enjoyment of a spot of side hustle.

The talks with the Wallabies had been in progress for over a year prior to Sunday night’s explosive announcement that Jones would be wearing the green-and-gold tracksuit again. Fair enough, you might think. Is it not his prerogative to keep his career options open? And yet his dialogue with Australia assumes a different complexion when you consider how it coincided with England’s most dismal results of his tenure.

Post-Gaucho, in 2022, the wheels fell off

In retrospect, we can divide the Jones era into pre-Gaucho and post-Gaucho chapters. Before the coach had his head turned by McLennan over a juicy steak, his England had started to look like prime World Cup contenders again, not least during their 17-point victory over the Wallabies. But in 2022 the wheels fell off, with a dismal Six Nations followed by tepid defeats by Argentina and South Africa in the autumn. Jones publicly insisted that no matter how loud the criticism grew, he would see his England contract through to the end of France 2023. But behind the scenes, the communication channels with Rugby Australia remained open, raising the issue of how deep his allegiance ran.

Dave Rennie is one person deeply wounded by how this saga has played out. In all those months when he sought desperately to set the Wallabies on the right path, McLennan was already lining up his successor behind his back, plotting an elaborate ritual to seduce Jones. If nothing else, it is a story to prove that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. It is not just that Jones was first courted in south-west London over slabs of the finest South American meat. It is that on his later visit to McLennan’s home, he was served a dinner of Portuguese chicken and salad, which, according to The Sydney Morning Herald, he “warmly appreciated”.

No sooner was Jones’ England exit confirmed than McLennan ramped up the culinary overtures once more, reportedly flying over to London to seal the deal over chicken wraps at a cafe. It is an illustration of the desperation at Rugby Australia to tie Jones down while he could still be tempted. In McLennan’s own priceless words: “We didn’t want a rampaging Eddie on the loose.”

The trouble is that Jones now stands ready to share all of the expertise he has amassed in charge of England with another nation. And not just any nation, but the one that England could yet face in the World Cup quarter-finals. It has the potential to be an unholy mess, borne of the RFU’s choice not to introduce a non-compete clause in Jones’ severance package. Suddenly, he has all the ingredients he needs to inflict brutal revenge on his former employers. Any trace of loyalty he feels to England will now fly out of the window. But based on the backroom politicking that brought us here, it is tempting to wonder how much loyalty there was all along.