Jones still feels pain of defeat
EVEN as he stands on the cusp of one of coaching’s greatest redemptions, Eddie Jones can’t forget the one that got away.
Sixteen years later, Jones remains haunted by Australia’s heartbreaking loss to England in the 2003 World Cup final.
Beaten by a Jonny Wilkinson field goal in the last minute of extra time, Jones has never got over that loss and missing out on the chance to redeem himself with his homeland.
Opening up for the first time about the devastating personal impact that loss had on him, Jones said it took him four years just to even realise he was still depressed and in shock about the result.
“I didn’t realise what an effect it had on me until possibly 2007.,” he said.
“I’ve experienced both and I know the difference you feel and if you don’t reflect really well, which I didn’t after the last World Cup, then you carry some things with you that aren’t always positive.”
Jones lost sight of what made him such a great coach in the first place, then he lost his job in 2005.
Crushed by his sacking and the bitter fallout that ensued, Jones has since gone on to establish himself as one of the World Cup’s greatest coaching success stories, but with other countries, not his homeland.
He was an assistant to the South African team that won the title in 2007, then he masterminded the greatest upset in the tournament’s history when Japan beat the Springboks in the pool stages in 2015.
And now he’s taken England to tonight’s final in Yokohama, against South Africa.