>> Gallagher: Eddie really needs to reel himself in
EDDIE Jones is famously good for a quote and a soundbite and that sharp mind can conjure up some nuggets I have enjoyed and savoured, but sometimes he talks errant nonsense which needs to be called out as such.
This week in particular he has been spouting some twaddle that he needs to be pulled up for.
First on Danny Cipriani, who you suspect he has only reluctantly picked, bowing to the overwhelming weight of opinion throughout the land.
“If he’s a good character he could be in the team for a long time,” said Jones. “If he’s a bad character, there’s always a plane back from Johannesburg. I’m convinced there is something he can offer because he’s made changes to his game, and his character will come through. He better have good questions. If they are terrible questions then it’s not a good idea.”
That sounds like a yellow card for Cipriani even before he’s stepped on the plane, a pre-emptive strike rather than the vote of confidence you might expect for a player who could, if he fires, drag England out of the deep hole they now find themselves.
But hang on this is not a player who has served over a year in bans for kicking, biting, butting and gouging – letting colleagues down and bringing the game into disrepute; this is not an individual who goes around calling his opposite number gypsey boy; this is not a player who has been recently banned for homophobic comments, this is not a man who regularly, unpleasantly, baits opposition coaches and players with borderline abusive criticism and cheap shots that make most rugby folk cringe.
Cipriani does none of that so why single him out? There has been no more disruptive figure – some would say ‘bad character’ – in the England camp recently than the coach himself with his embarrassing comments on Alyn Wyn Jones, Rhys Patchell, Johnny Sexton, the Scots, and the ridiculous overreaction to being out-thought and outwitted for half an hour by Italy at Twickenham. If a player had come out with that stuff he would be out on his ear.
And that hint that he had better have good questions or else, what’s that all about? At 30 and with 12 seasons of top rugby under his belt Cipriani is exactly the kind of independently minded individual who should be asking hard questions of the coaching staff.
Cipriani was playing top level rugby when Cameron Redpath and Jack Willis were still at primary school reading Janet and John. This is an England side that has been labouring on without a permeant backs coach, they have desperately needed an experienced voice questioning what the bloody hell has been going on over the last 15 months or so. Surely Eddie isn’t frightened of that?
Absolutely the last thing England need right now are yes men, they need some hard core hungry rugby players with thousands of miles on the clock asking why England are going backwards at a rate of knots 15 months before the World Cup. That’s not evidence of a bad character or disruptive. All behind closed doors of course, rugby man to rugby man, without us in the media listening much as we would love to.
Then there were those odd comments about commercial opportunities perhaps proving a distraction. “It is definitely a key issue,” proclaims Eddie. “Just look at the commercial opportunities here compared to other countries. They are much greater. We have been on top of it. Maybe we are not on top of it now. It is a constant issue for us.”
This from the man with the best paid job in world rugby, who on the eve of this year’s miserably poor Six Nations negotiated a bespoke two year extension to his contract – very nice work if you can get it – taking him up to 2021.
This from the man who broke an already lucrative contract with the Stormers – which caused that Super Rugby franchise much last-minute disruption and heartache –to take the England job; this from the man who reportedly has a lucrative book deal in place after his time with England ends.
There is nothing wrong with all that per se, but Eddie, don’t go having a pop at players who are also trying to look after number one. Everybody in the England camp needs to dial down financial aspects of their careers right now. None of them are paupers. Win the World Cup and you will be made for life as the majority of the 2003 crew have been.