‘Sitting in a TAB too much’: Everything Eddie said about ‘horse guy’ NRL chair, Quade, Giteau Law and winning the RWC

Eddie Jones is not yet back in Australia but the new Wallabies coach has not taken long to make his presence felt.

In 2016, Jones brought “bodyline” back to Australia as he encouraged his English side to not take a backward step and take the Wallabies on in every facet of the game. It worked, as England won three-nil to seal their maiden series victory Down Under.

Seven years on and Jones has another target in his society: relevance.

Jones, who became available for the Wallabies in 2023 after being sacked by the Rugby Football Union in December, covered lots of ground from the Giteau Law, his coaching structure, Quade Cooper to fixing up Australia’s discipline issues.

He also addressed the need to get the Wallabies winning again, but also to ensure that the game is spread far and wide from the international grounds of the world to local communities and schools.

Here is everything Jones said in his first press conference since returning as Wallabies coach on Monday.

On Peter V’landys’ comments that rugby is boring:

“I think he’s been probably sitting in TAB too much mate, I encourage him to get out of the TAB and go and watch some Super Rugby. I’ll invite him to a game, mate.”

On poaching players?

“I don’t think I’ve ever said we need to poach players before September, but I think I said there was a priority in what we need to do with rugby league.

“In the Australian rugby landscape, rugby league is a pretty intense competitor and they compete for the fans, they compete for television money, for the players. In the short-term, and we’re talking about the World Cup now, it’s highly unlikely any players are going to come from rugby league.”

On making rugby relevant in Australia?

“That’s the challenge, mate. And the challenge is that firstly, you’ve got to play good rugby. And playing good rugby is important and good rugby is different for everyone.

“If you come from Randwick your appreciation of rugby is that you want to move the ball quickly and play with an aggressive intent.

“If you come from Sydney Uni or Queensland Uni, or Brothers, that might mean a bit different to them.

“What we’ve got to develop is that Australian style of game that everyone buys into, which is a combination of quality set-piece, an aggressive attacking mindset and wanting to get the ball quickly when we don’t have it.

“If we can play some good rugby then people will want to watch us play, and if we win then we’ll be in a better position in the media so these 15 people we’ve got now will be 30 people, because all the rugby league journalists will want to be a part of it. We might even get, what’s his name, the horse guy into the media conference, V’landys. 

“The task is relatively simple, but the process is the difficult part. Like everyone knows what we want to do. I’ve heard guys who I’ve coached, they tell me their sons don’t watch rugby anymore. That happens when you’re not connected with your fans and part of that is a winning process and part of that is how we conduct ourselves, and I think there’s a clear message we’ve got to try to become a team of the rugby community.”

On whether Jones ever thought he would coach the Wallabies again?

“I never really thought about it,” Jones said.

“You have fleeting feelings where you think ‘I’d love to go back to Australia’, but I never really sat down and said ‘this is the goal, this is what I want to do’ because coaching isn’t really like that. You have to coach as well as you can and someone then says, ‘we’ll give you the opportunity to coach this team’ and you then make a decision if you do it or not. 

“I’m obviously honoured and 100 per cent humbled by the opportunity to coach Australia. It’s the stuff dreams are made of to have this opportunity.  

“I’m looking forward to it, and the only thing I’ve thought about particularly is Bob Dwyer in his second stint was a much better coach. When you go in there when you’re younger and you think you know everything, the second time around you’ve been around the traps a bit and you’ve picked up some experience and maybe you pick up the wind of what’s needed quicker.” 

On whether the Wallabies can win the World Cup?

“There’s no long-term [thinking], the whole thing is to win the World Cup in 2023,” Jones said.

“Is the side capable? Definitely, but we’ve got to keep improving.

“We have to concentrate on areas that will make the biggest difference to the performance of the team and we have to get selection right. And we’ve got to create an environment where players are going to give that little bit more because nobody knows how much they can give, that’s set by the conditions of their mind, the conditions of the environment.

“We’ve spoken about who we need that is going to squeeze everything out of the players.

“You look at World Rugby at the moment there’s six teams, from France to Australia in the rankings – I’ve never seen a closer group.

“This is the most intriguing World Cup we’ve ever seen.

“Throw in the volatility of the refereeing at the moment with red and yellow cards are like playing in the lottery, you don’t know what you’re going to get. 

“You’ve got TMO’s who can’t referee telling the referee what to do.

“You’ve got all these things happening that give us this massive opportunity and it’s an exciting time to be involved.”

On the Giteau Law?

Jones has yet to discuss at any length the Overseas Selection Policy with Rugby Australia, but it is suffice to say he will want the freedom to select some players.

“In terms of the Giteau Law at the moment, it is what it is at the moment,” Jones said.

“That’s certainly something that I’ll discuss a little bit further down the track.

“At the end of the day, we’d like to have our best players available and if some of those best players are playing overseas, we’d like to find a way for them to be available.”

On Will Skelton?

“When he’s at his best he’s probably one of the most influential players in European club rugby,” Jones said.

“So, he’s certainly got something to add to any team that he plays in. But European club rugby is different than Test rugby, so you’ve got to you’ve got to make an adjustment to your game. I’m sure Will’s quite capable of doing that.”

On the fly-half stocks?

“That’s moreso in the way you think about the game rather than the physical part of the game,” Jones said.

“And then we need to be a smart team, because in some areas we won’t be as athletically gifted as others so we need to be smart about the game. I am looking for a 10 who can play tough in that position, particularly in terms of decision-making, and be really smart about how he plays the game.

“I was lucky enough to see those two young 10s play live when Randwick played Eastwood post the [England] tour, so [Tane] Edmed and [Ben] Donaldson. I have seen both of those guys play for Australia A, and saw Donaldson in the November Test matches. So they’re both young guys who are coming through.

“You have the experience of [Bernard] Foley. I have just watched him play recently live, he still has a good command of the game.

“You have the young guy at the Brumbies, [Noah] Lolesio, who has played a number of Tests.

“There is good competition there, but again it will be who comes through at Super Rugby that is going to have the first opportunity for Australia. But having said that, and it seems like a contradiction, we are also going to have to decide quite quickly who we think are the best nines and 10s and 12s, particularly, to try and build up that cohesion.”

Curiously Jones left Quade Cooper off that list of players. Pressed on whether it was an oversight, Jones said the Japan-based playmaker was currently unavailable but would come into the reckoning.

“You’ve got to be available and as it stands when Super Rugby starts, he won’t be,” Jones said. 

“We’d be hopeful he would be and playing in Japan isn’t a concern, only that at the moment there’s the Giteau Law and there’s a number of players we can use, so we have to be cognisant of that but he’ll be one of the blokes I meet.

“I had a bit of a chat on text with his old mate Will [Genia] the other day because I’ve been watching him playing for the last few weeks. 

“It’s good to see those two guys still playing and certainly when Quade came back, he didn’t look out of place and looked a more mature [player], still gifted in terms of his ball play and decision. He’s got that good short-kicking game that makes him a dangerous player and he certainly added a lot of physicality to his game

“The big thing is to get fit and start playing. When he does that, then he comes into recognition. If you look at there’s that group of more experienced players, young guys coming through, guys who have in and out but like most teams, that’s a crucial position so we have to make sure our first or second selections at the role is spot on to what the team needs.”

On the coaching structure?

The Wallabies are currently without an attack coach after Scott Wisemantel resigned earlier in the year.

Jones was coy on who he was thinking he would add to his team, but the experienced coach said he would speak with the current assistant coaches before making any final decisions.

“There’s not uncertainty, mate, I’ve got pretty good ideas,” he said.

“There’s some fantastic possibilities there but the first thing is to speak to the people who have been in the chair, get an indication of their desire, because some of them might want to continue.

“I’ve got to work out their desire to keep continuing and then I’ll work out what we need. And again, it’s more about what the players need, not necessarily what I need, and so the players’ feedback is going to be important in that process.”

On the Wallabies’ captaincy?

James Slipper is currently the incumbent captain after taking over from Michael Hooper ahead of The Rugby Championship.

“That’s going to be really important,” Jones said.

“We need to find a captain who can galvanise the team. Whenever you change coaches or change the team environment, as what’s happened, the captaincy becomes even more important.

“We need someone who can quickly galvanise the troops [and] work closely with me, because every captain and every coach combination is different. So the right captain for a particular coach is not neccesarily the right captain for another coach.

“It’s a bit of appraisal. I have just got to walk the floor initially. Find out about each of the players, meet with them face to face. I have started having some preliminary phone calls, talk to the players and then we will make hopefully an educated decision.”

On the Wallabies’ selection in 2023?

Before being axed on Monday, Rennie had a week earlier assembled a 44-man squad for the Wallabies’ first training camp of the year.

Jones said he would be open-minded about players, giving hope to players like James O’Connor who were left out after being dropped last year.

“Players select and deselect themselves, so use Super Rugby this select yourself, boys,” Jones said.

“I’ve got a pretty open mind right now.

“As I said previously, I think Dave’s done a really good job in tough circumstances.

“Part of doing a good job is selection. So, I’ve got a fairly open mind. I want to want to look to see who’s improving. Who can make a difference to an Australian team who wants to win the World Cup.

“And, what, there’s 16 rounds of Super Rugby for the players to make a pretty big stance, so that’s the opportunity, and I don’t need to premeditate who I think should be in or who I think should be out.”

On the Wallabies’ discipline issues that plagued them throughout 2022?

“We’ve got to get our players to understand that whatever the referee wants for that day we’ve got to play to,” Jones said.

“That will come through how we can create a training environment to educate the players to do that.

“None of the players want to make bad decisions, none of the players want to give away penalties, but maybe then they’ll just understand the situation at the moment.

“We’ll just try to create a training environment where it encourages them to make good decisions.

“Set-piece penalties, which can be a big part of the game, are about the quality of your set-piece and that’s obviously for Australian rugby, or any team in the world, that’s a huge factor at the moment.”