I know my mistakes may have cost us the World Cup
⮞in the final extract from his new book, Eddie Jones, the England coach, reveals his lasting regret
There was only one fleeting private moment early in the week of the final in Japan when I allowed the thought to flit across my mind: “What will I do if we win the World Cup?” The memory is vivid. I was alone in my room in the Tokyo Hilton but, after 10 seconds, I shut down the pointless speculation. I had a word with myself: “Mate, you’re getting way ahead of yourself. We’ve got a huge match ahead.” I can honestly say that I did not think about winning the World Cup again all week.
Pretty much everyone outside of South Africa expected us to win. We knew this truth, but understanding the consequences is much harder to fathom. Sometimes I feel like people only really understand a situation once they’ve experienced it. It’s a bit like having a baby. Before the birth you are given so much advice from people who are already parents. But until the baby arrives you cannot really understand what is involved.
In the week of the final, we spent a lot of time telling the players that the Springboks were going to come at them with ferocious intent. We reminded them that South African rugby players tend to dislike the English and so they would dredge up even more emotion. We spoke about the fact that the Boks were also trying to do something special for South Africa as a country but, until they had been through the experience of facing a fired-up Springbok team in a World Cup final, it was hard for the players to understand what was coming.
I made a decision to keep the week fairly normal in terms of training. We stuck to the same routine which had served us so well against Argentina, Australia and New Zealand in the previous three games. The week went pretty well and then, travelling to the ground on the day of the final, we got caught in traffic. Of course, we had rehearsed for this eventuality and gone through a mock drill in the past when you arrive late for a game. So we were prepared, but I’m sure one or two players were still unsettled by the fact it happened on World Cup final day.
I lacked boldness as a leader
A couple of minutes into the final, something far more disconcerting happened: Kyle Sinckler and Maro Itoje collided as they went to tackle the Springbok wing Makazole Mapimpi. Kyle was knocked out. He was eventually able to stand up and walk slowly from the field but his World Cup final was over. We had lost one of our key men, our in-form tighthead prop, and we would soon buckle under the sustained might of the Springbok scrum.
We were under the pump, and my
lasting regret is that I didn’t make the two early substitutions we needed to change the momentum of the game. But to take off a couple of players after 20 minutes in a World Cup final was a huge call. I have done it before in the international arena – when I withdrew Luther Burrell after 20 minutes and changed the course of a Test match against Australia in Brisbane in 2016. But I chose not to do anything so radical against South Africa.
Perhaps I was guilty of making the wrong decision simply because it was the World Cup final rather than addressing the actual game slipping away in front of my eyes. If I had been bolder as a leader we would have had a better chance of becoming world champions that night.