Wallabies head coach Eddie Jones has finally resigned after the disastrous 2023 Rugby World Cup campaign. It’s surprising that it took this long but to all rugby fans in Australia it was inevitable in the wake of the worst cup campign where the Wallabies failed to make it out of the pool stage for the first time in World Cup history.
What started off with the big change of head coach after Rugby Australia punted Dave Rennie for poor results in favour of Eddie Jones has now resulted with Eddie Jones walking for poor results.
With 2 wins in the pool over so-called minnows or 2nd tier teams in Georgia and Portugal, it was never going to be enough after defeat to Fiji and a heavy 40-6 defeat to Wales that all but consigned the Wallabies to an early exit.
Post mortems have been conducted by punters and fans alike and now an official review into the campaign will be carried out with Wallabies the laughing stock of Australian sport with the pile on going far and wide, including Sydney Water getting in on the act. At least rugby is making headline for Rugby Australia Chairman Hamish McLennan but not for the right reasons.
His comments about how experienced players like Michael Hooper, Quade Cooper and Bernard Foley aren’t winners was hard to cop and even worse was suggesting that Hooper was not the right role model is hard to believe for someone with such high regard in the Australian ranks. Hooper’s ‘no repsonse’ to questions about those comments from Jones showed how classy he really is, instead of throwing petrol on the already smouldering bin fire.
There are 2 issues doing the rounds – the usual governance and too many teams in Super Rugby leading to where the Wallabies have found themselves today and what Eddie Jones did to get us here. Lets focus on the second issue because that has more to do with the recent results.
There is now a search on for another Wallabies head coach that Rugby Australia CEO Phil Waugh says there will be no rush to fill the role. The administration are wary of entering into a rash decision that could set the code back even further (if that’s possible). There are already several names doing the rounds as contenders with the likes of Stephen Larkham, Dan McKellar, Michael Cheika and even Ian Foster. Former Wallabies coach Robbie Deans has already ruled himself out and who could blame him?
If McKellar is appointed, the big beneficiary will be Leicester who will no doubt expect compensation and this would make it the second time they have profited from Eddie Jones getting punted.
With a Lions tour in 2025 and a home world cup in 2027, the position is somewhat attractive. Whoever gets the job will need the full buy in and be able to deal with state politics with the topic of centralisation or alignment the hot topics.
Rugby Australia also need a high performance director and whoever that is will need to get on with the head coach very quickly for the code to succeed.
Selections
The squad announcement back in August rang alarm bells with the dumping over senior players including Michael Hooper and Quade Cooper, among others, leading to a vacuum in experience that was badly needed but so sorely lacking at times.
How Len Ikitau and Pete Samu were left home is a bigger mystery. Granted, Ikitau was injured after working back from a broken scapula. However, Jones selected others who were coming back from injuries including Max Jorgensen and Rob Leota. Jorgensen didn’t even register a minute after breaking his ankle in a training incident.
It must also be noted that Jones did not select anyone to come in as cover from either the Australia A or Barbarians side stacked with Australian players that was touring the UK which was reportedly set up as a contingency.
Captaincy
The fact Jones selected Will Skleton as captain over James Slipper was another mystery. Skelton only lasted one game with injury and then came a merry-go-round of captains for the year. In the end it was 6 captains that resembled a juniors team where the role was rotated to give kids the thrill of winning the ‘guess which hand the whistle is in’ game before kick off.
Dave Porecki ended up captaining 2 games but is not captaincy material moving forward and the Wallabies will need the likes of Allan Alaalatoa back soon before the Wallabies take on Wales in 8 months time.
Coaching staff
This one is where the blame must lie for the failures of this campaign. Jones has always tried to use experience from other sports to try and give his sides a different lens in which to view the game. The amount of changes to the coaching staff in the lead up was worrying and so was the abrupt departure of attack coach Brad Davis on the eve of their departure to France.
Jason Ryles was called in at the last minute to replace Davis and has worked with Jones before but as an attack coach, he did not show much other than to ensure that Carter Gordon shovelled the ball out to Samu Kerevi. He won’t be around as he is off to the Melbourne Storm in 2024 where his skills may be better suited.
Brett Hodgson was the defence coach for this campaign and was found out big time. His defensive plan was almost non-existent and more often than not, he placed the wingers on the 15 metre channel and they were constantly out thought as a number of tries were scored in the wide channel.
At times there was not a sweeper and got caught as the Nick Tompkins try for Wales showed after a kick over the top from Gareth Anscombe left a yawning gap after Andrew Kellaway had made his way over to the opposite wing from his fullback position.
Hodgson did not even front one press conference as it looks like he was being shielded but he is one who should not be continuing in 2024. In the case of Ryles and Hodgson, they do not appear to possess the ability to offer technical feedback from a rugby union sense to correct flaws and with such a young and inexperienced side, the players needed that help.
Dan Palmer is an excellent scrum coach but ended up doing lineouts. This is not his skillset and the lineout had struggles at times. Palmer is off to Leicester to join McKellar.
Pierre-Henry Broncan was the ‘maul specialist’. He was a scrum half so other than standing behind mauls, what else could he offer? The Wallabies maul was ineffective and only scored one rolling maul try all year in the 9 games that were played. That is one try in 720 minutes of action.
Eddie Jones decided not to use one of Australia’s and the world best in Laurie Fisher and now the results speak for themselves.
The game needs to recover after this dark period and so do the young players from this squad who were exposed to the world stage far too early. Their Super rugby sides will need to wrap their arms around them and help heal the mental scars of such a disastrous campaign before hitting the field in 2024.
