Rugby World Cup: Claim that Australia coach Eddie Jones behaved like ‘a horny teenager’

Danny Cipriani and coach Eddie Jones travelling with England in South Africa in 2018. Photo / Getty Images

With his team preparing to open their Rugby World Cup campaign on the back of five consecutive defeats, Wallabies coach Eddie Jones is facing accusations that he took an uncomfortable interest in the personal life of former England player Danny Cipriani.

The bedraggled Wallabies face Georgia on Sunday morning, winless since Jones took over as coach after leaving the England role.

In Cipriani’s new book, Who am I?, the player recalls a series of run-ins with Jones, who coached England from 2015 through 2022.

In the book, Cipriani says Jones particularly behaved “like a horny teenager” when asking the player about his sex life with Scottish television presenter Kirsty Gallacher.

He alleges that after breaking up with Gallacher in 2016, the coach asked him at a training camp: “Haven’t you shagged her? What’s she like?”

He also highlights a team dinner in the same year at which he claims Jones kept “pecking” about his sex life with Gallacher.

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In the book, Cipriani says: “Eddie keeps pecking, like a horny teenager, and in the end I tell him straight, ‘Eddie, I don’t want to talk about this, it’s making me uncomfortable’.”

The couple saw each other for six months and had tried to keep their romance secret.

Cipriani was seldom selected by Jones after the Australian took over the head coach’s role following the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

“He’s picked a part-time 10 ahead of me,” writes the flyhalf. “I can’t help thinking Eddie only picked me for that training camp as a joke.”

Before departing for the World Cup, the Wallabies coach unleashed a tirade to media at Sydney Airport encouraging journalists to “give themselves an uppercut”.

He later said he had no regrets about the press conference and “fell asleep straight away” on the flight to France.

Jones had reacted to questions about his squad selections following four straight defeats, including a home loss to Argentina and a thrashing at the MCG by the All Blacks. In their final warm up game, they were beaten 41-17 by hosts France.

“I never have any regrets, mate,” Jones later told Sydney radio station 2GB. “You know, I try to just be as honest as I can be with my feelings and emotions and that’s how I felt at that time.”

In the book, Cipriani makes surprising revelations about his private life. He writes: “It’s not unusual for me to sleep with three different women in one day.”

He says the women were “everyone from porn stars to actresses to girls I meet at the coffee shop”, and claims he was “very disciplined with the timings, shuffling one girl out of the house just in time for the next one to turn up”.