Why Eddie’s future is the real elephant in the room
The last team to win the Six Nations on the back of a losing Rugby World Cup final was — oh wait, sorry, there isn’t one.
england won in 1992, having previously lost the final to Australia, and France shared the trophy with Wales in 1988 not long after defeat by the All Blacks, but these triumphs were in the days of the Five Nations.
In the modern era, three teams from europe have gone into the competition as losing World Cup finalists and all have been beaten in two of their five games.
On Sunday, eddie Jones’s england will begin a campaign to buck that trend. For all his promises of brutality and experience to sweep aside the callow French, it will still not be easy.
In 2000, France lost matches to england and Ireland at home and finished Six Nations runners-up. In 2008, england lost to Wales at Twickenham for the first time in 20 years and were beaten 15-9 by Scotland — they squeaked home 23-19 against Italy, too.
In 2012, having already lost to england, France suffered the indignity of a 22-21 reverse to Italy, the first time they had lost in that fixture, away.
World Cup final setbacks can deliver aftershocks. Are the team emotionally and mentally exhausted? Does the hunger remain? Does a bread and butter competition now underwhelm? These are all valid debates.
To which england can add one more — a coach on a two-year contract. In a four-year cycle, what happens to the dynamic of the group when the coach might leave at the midway stage?
This is a problem purely of the RFU’s making.
having put such intense emphasis on World Cup performance with the recruitment of a gun-for-hire coach from Australia, how can they afford such uncertainty at the halfway point before France in 2023? No wonder there appears such confusion with Jones (below) feeling vulnerable one moment — as if control is being wrested from him — then convinced and settled that his time is coming to an end the next. Recently, Jones was telling friends that he felt his employers were looking to ease him out, that an appointment would be made over his head to make his position close to untenable. A big hitter, a threat to his authority, his mind was spinning with unjustified conspiracy theories. Yet ask him about a situation more than two years hence and he will say it is none of his business. he has two years left on his contract and then it will be on to the next job. This current term is about handling a smooth transition. Yet who could replace Jones, like for like? And surely that person needs more than two years with his squad — particularly if the
Saracens contingent have been experiencing the ramifications of their ban, with no prospect of european rugby for at least another year.
Rassie erasmus was less than two years in charge of South Africa before lifting the Webb ellis Trophy last November, but he was following the unimpressive Allister Coetzee. It will be far harder erasing or adapting the methods of a coaching personality as strong as Jones.
Saracens’ fate has dominated rugby talk since the World Cup final, yet they are in many ways the least of Jones’s problems.
As much as he brushes speculation away, his own future is the elephant in the room.
Jones is again talking about creating the best team in the world, but how, when the last two years of its development is in the hands of — who? A stranger, as yet unknown.
Jones has already identified three potential problem areas — complacency, overcoming increased expectation and the improvements gained by rivals through forensic examination.
Jones thinks a team who have reached a World Cup final might believe they do not have to go through that process. Yet a fourth problem is the players’ reaction
to what is now an interim manager.
Even Sir Alex Ferguson felt his Manchester United team lost their way the first time he announced his retirement, which is why he kept it a secret until after the league was won, second time around.
After England’s last match in Yokohama, jones spoke about the way teams evolve across fouryear cycles between World Cups. Players age, lose form, younger alternatives emerge.
Yet England’s starting Xv in Paris on Sunday will make a virtue of continuity, with jones promising a physical shock for France’s young players.
What does that mean? Are France already in the process of preparing for a home World Cup in less than four years?
And England? What is jones preparing for? Is he now in the business of picking this team up or driving it forward? Is this the start of a two-year transition or a two-year audition? one gets the feeling nobody knows, even him.
It could be the start of something big, it could be two years unmoored and drifting.
It’s no way to lose a World Cup, let alone win one.