Jones hits back over high staff turnover

ENGLAND coach Eddie Jones has defended his coaching methods and high turnover rate of backroom staff in response to scorching criticism of his regime.

A report published by the Times last week used anonymous accounts from people who have worked alongside him to illustrate what a hard taskmaster the England coach allegedly is.

In the piece, Jones is described as “brutal, rude, aggressive” by one former player in terms of how he treats his staff.

“Verbal abuse, pressure, belittling,” is how another former employee put it.

It comes just as Jones has finished rebuilding his coaching team once again after more departures. John Mitchell, his number two, was the most recent after the former All Blacks boss departed for Wasps rather than continue overseeing the defence - leaving Jones to refashion his coaching ticket for the third time since taking over the job in 2015.

Mitchell’s exit is the latest example of the revolving door policy that has seemingly existed since Jones took over, with assistant coaches, physios, doctors, analysts and psychologists leaving at an alarmingly frequent rate.

And after England slumped to their worst ever Six Nations performance earlier this year by finishing fifth, questions concerning their head coach have only grown louder.

However, despite all that, Jones is defiant that his methods are the right ones.

“These things happen. Everyone has an opinion on how you operate. I can’t say it’s right or wrong, I try to be a reasonable person,” Jones told BT Sport.

“I’ve coached for a fair period of time and there have probably been times when I haven’t been as nice as I’d like to be. But I endeavour to be fair all the time and I’m excited where this team is going to go. The only thing you can do is respond and the only way we’ll respond is by playing good rugby so that’s what we intend to do.”

“Brutal” was one of the words used to describe the way Jones treats his staff, but the 61-year-old said: “I think the fact that I’ve been coaching for this period of time would indicate that that’s not the truth.

“Has it been a high turnover of staff? There’s been turnover in certain areas where we’ve looked to refresh the staff. This is my sixth year in the job and you’d expect that from your support staff.“