Eddie Jones plans to do a ‘Rassie special’ with Wallabies

Eddie Jones is already hard at work with Australia after recently concluding his tenure as the coach of England, where he had the highest winning ratio of any coach to lead that nation at 73 percent.

During his time in charge of England, Jones was in charge of many battles against the Springboks, while he of course masterminded Japan’s historic win over South Africa at the 2015 World Cup.

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At the 2007 World Cup, Jones served as a consultant with the Springboks during that successful campaign, and so the 62-year-old is certainly no stranger to South African rugby followers.

He has very limited time to turn the Wallabies into a team that could be considered real title contenders at the World Cup later this year, but he has interestingly referenced Erasmus and the Springboks when discussing how he would look to make an expedient impact.

“The only thing I’m thinking about is the next nine and a half months, because in reality what I can control is to get the team ready firstly for the Rugby Championship and the Bledisloe Cup and then to the World Cup,” Jones told Newstalk ZB

“If you look at the history of the World Cup, I think one of the interesting things is what South Africa did last in the last World Cup. In 2018, they were a bit of a mess, winning at under 40 percent. There was great disgruntlement with the way they were playing and Rassie Erasmus comes in and basically goes back to traditional Springboks rugby and they win the World Cup.

“So, there’s no reason why we can’t do that.”

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Eddie Jones has a huge job to do with the inconsistent Wallabies

In an exclusive wide-ranging interview with the Herald and Nine News, Jones also recently spoke of the new task that lies ahead of him with the Wallabies, and immediately identified the Rugby Championship challenge against the Springboks.

“Everyone will have an opinion on Australian rugby or the Wallabies and there will probably be 500 things. It’s about picking out the one, two or three things that will make the biggest difference. It’s about getting alignment on that with players and the coaching staff and then we dive into those areas with the utmost relentlessness and absolute pursuit of excellence.

“If we get that right, the team will continue to improve and grow and we’ll start the Rugby Championship off on a good note against South Africa. What a good way to start off. South Africa is a side that we know are going to play set-piece to set-piece and kick the ball in the air. It’s almost the opposite of how an Australian team wants to play. We’ll need to be at our best to beat them.”

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