Eddie Jones has given his full backing to the “young blokes” stating they earned their place in the Australian squad ahead of the Rugby World Cup.
After England fired him in January, Dave Rennie hired the smart tactician to turn around the team’s poor performance before the big sports event in France.
But losing five times in a row—twice to the All Blacks, once to Argentina, once to the World Cup holders South Africa, and once to the hosts France—was not in the plan.
After they lost their first two Tests, their former coach John Connolly, who took over from Jones in 2006 after his first time in charge, went on a wild rant, calling it “a bloody disaster, mate.”
“How did we end up with Eddie again? He is full of it. He talks a great game but plays a terrible one,” Connolly told Britain’s Daily Telegraph.
“When I took over from Eddie, the players were like beaten down sheepdogs. There was no leadership. There was no development. I can’t believe we have made the same mistake again.”
Newspaper The Australian also joined in, saying that Jones had done “a miraculous job of taking everyone’s attention away from the train wreck that Australian rugby has become.”
“His one-man act has kept rugby in the spotlight all year long, but like all stand-up entertainers, Jones needs some fresh material to keep his audience from dozing off.”
Jones seems to have listened, because he got rid of experienced players like Michael Hooper, Quade Cooper, and Jed Holloway and put together the least-experienced Wallabies World Cup team in the history of the sport.
Only eight of them have been in the tournament before.
“I’ve backed the young blokes because they earned it. Simple as that. I haven’t handed it to them. They grabbed it,” said Jones.
“The experts have written us off. No one believes we can do it, but we believe. The coaches believe, the players believe and that’s all that matters.”
Carter Gordon and Tate McDermott, two up-and-coming young players, will be his new halfbacks. Cooper has been kicked off the team, and veteran Nic White seems to have been moved to finishing scrum-half.
Jones put Tom Hooper, Fraser McReight, and Rob Valetini in the back row because Michael Hooper couldn’t play.
He also called up Max Jorgensen, an 18-year-old utility back, as he tries to start a change in the team’s age group.
“Four losses are four losses,” admitted Jones after the second New Zealand defeat. “Are we making progress? Sometimes the result sheet doesn’t reflect what you’re accurately doing.”
After three big losses, the All Blacks’ 23-20 loss in Dunedin this month, which was their best performance so far under Jones, gave the team’s former captain, Stirling Mortlock, hope that things will get better.
“I have been a lot more positive and optimistic than a lot of other people that I’ve been speaking to in and around the game,” Mortlock, who was part of Jones’s team that surged to the 2003 World Cup final, told reporters.
“I have been to both the home matches that we’ve had and I’ve seen improvements from every Test match. Although we’ve lost all four, there’s certain aspects of our game where I’ve seen definitive improvements.”
Mortlock said that their health was a worry. But because they are in a group with Georgia, Wales, Fiji, and Portugal, the odds are in their favour. This could give the young team time to build momentum.
“In World Cups, it’s all about maximising your chances of taking momentum into the sudden-death matches, and that will certainly be the focus for the Wallabies,” he said.
Some of that optimism may have gone away, though, after the hosts France beat the young team 41–17 in Paris and showed them up for what they are: rookies.
The Wallabies will need to get in shape before their first game against Georgia on September 9. However, Wales and a Fiji team that beat England at Twickenham will be the toughest tests.
Jones has a lot of work to do if Australia wants to make a name for themselves in France.
Photo by EPA/KIM LUDBROOK
