Former England coach Eddie Jones and All Blacks coach Ian Foster ahead of the test at Twickenham last year. Photo / Getty Images
Former England coach Eddie Jones and All Blacks coach Ian Foster ahead of the test at Twickenham last year. Photo / Getty Images
OPINION
It turns out the Wallabies and Eddie aren’t going steady as everyone thought.
The irascible Eddie Jones, speaking with former England captain Lawrence Dallaglio in London last week, said no matter what happens at this year’s World Cup, it will be time for him to stand down as Wallabiescoach.
He’s contracted until 2027 but he gave every indication he won’t be hanging around even as far as 2024.
Understandably, given that they fired Dave Rennie earlier this year for no other reason than Jones became available following his dismissal by England, Rugby Australia have shrugged off the comments, telling everyone they have no concerns and that they expect their man to be at his post after the tournament.
And they are probably right to be unconcerned. He is 63 but there is no sense that the natural competitive urge within Jones has dimmed, and it is difficult to believe he won’t be thinking somewhere in the back of his mind about the 2025 British & Irish Lions tour and the opportunity that presents to re-establish Australia as a premier rugby nation.
At the front of his mind will be this year’s World Cup, where Australia, partly through the luck of the draw, are being touted as a possible surprise package.
The arrival of Jones is another reason why many are beginning to take more notice of the Wallabies, as he remains a force of nature with the experience, tenacity and rugby intelligence to transform Australia’s national side in a relatively short space of time.
But if the Wallabies are to fulfil their potential later this year they need access to all of their best players, and this may be what Jones was doing on Dallaglio’s podcast — warning his employer he’s ready to walk away from his job if he doesn’t get what he wants.
And what he wants is a change in the eligibility laws so that he can pick more than the allowable three overseas players.
He wants giant locks Will Skelton and Richie Arnold and also Quade Cooper, Samu Kerevi and Marika Koroibete for his World Cup squad, so he feels he needs some leverage with which to lobby the RA board.
It seems like he’s saying in a coded message, “give me what I want or I walk away”.
Kiwis won’t be too sure why Jones is hellbent on selecting Cooper, but Skelton has proven himself the best tight lock in Europe and a backline with Kerevi and Koroibete in it is going to be incredibly dangerous.
Jones will have a strong case with which to persuade his employer to amend the rules, and if they do, it will have two distinct impacts on New Zealand.
The first is that the All Blacks will be facing a much tougher and more creative Wallabies team, and the second is that an expanded remit to select from offshore will, almost certainly, lead to a further weakening of Australia’s Super Rugby teams.
And potentially there will be a third impact, which will be to tip the balance in favour of New Zealand making its own adjustments to the All Blacks’ eligibility policy.
There will come a point, if it’s not upon us already, where it makes no sense for New Zealand Rugby to be sticking its fingers in so many commercial pies all to raise enough money to keep its players involved in a Super Rugby tournament that is no longer the high-performance mecca it once was.
Interestingly, the decision to appoint the next All Blacks coach in March this year was made to bring New Zealand into line with the best high-performance practice.
Best high-performance selection practice, by weight of numbers doing it, says international teams should be able to pick players from outside their own domestic competition.
If Jones gets his way and RA increases the number of offshore players the Wallabies can select, New Zealand will be holding an eligibility line all on its own, trying to protect a competition while its partner lets Australia’s best run free around the world.
It doesn’t seem a sustainable or wise proposition for New Zealand to be so wedded to something Australia is not.
Super Rugby Pacific needs both countries to be unified in their eligibility policies and it will be hard not to see New Zealand as mugs — well intended and somewhat noble, but mugs all the same — when they go through next year unable to pick Richie Mo’unga, Leicester Fainga’anuku and Beauden Barrett, while the Wallabies pluck a world-class contingent from around the world.
Doubly annoying will be that New Zealand’s players are trapped in a competition where the Australians get so much more out of playing them than the virtually worthless exercise it is for the likes of the Blues, Hurricanes, Crusaders and Chiefs to play the Rebels and Force.
The big fear has always been that if eligibility is opened up to overseas players, Super Rugby in New Zealand will collapse.
But presumably it could withstand an eligibility policy where the All Blacks can match whatever Jones manages to extract from Rugby Australia.
