The latest on the Eddie Jones and RFU saga

It is official: England sack Eddie Jones.

The Australia departs with a 74% win record as England head coach. How did it come to this?

See below…

On December 2…

It has been widely reported that the review panel which will pick over England’s disappointing autumn campaign will meet on Monday 5 December. With a board meeting the next day, Eddie Jones could learn where he stands with the Rugby Football Union by the middle of next week.

In another twist, La Rochelle boss Ronan O’Gara revealed in his column with the Irish Examiner, that he had been contacted by the RFU but wrote: “I asked the RFU to remove me from any putative list of head coach options.

“La Rochelle are keen for me to stay and I am extremely happy to do so.”

On 30th November…

There was a dizzying 24 hours of discourse about England head coach Eddie Jones’s future with the Rugby Football Union.

Following news that the RFU are to conduct a review into the Autumn Nations Series campaign, it was reported that Jones would still take part in a Rugby World Cup recce in France. And now there has been a further mix of views put out into the ether – including one that might bolster Jones’s position and one that could hamper it.

The Times report that Eddie Jones’ personal media adviser David Pembroke apologised for calling RFU chief executing Bill Sweeney “slippery”, after suggesting the executive had leaked stories about recent staff departures to the newspaper.

In a post under articles on the paper’s website, Pembroke wrote: “There is only one question now and it is a question of governance. The chairman of the RFU must ask the CEO of the RFU did he or persons on his behalf leak the information published in the Times today by Owen Slot about the hockey coach and the doctor? Simple. If answer is yes. ‘Slippery’ Bill is a goner.” There was also an earlier post that has been deleted, The Times write.

However, one senior England player has come out to bat for Jones. Ellis Genge told The Good, The Bad and The Rugby podcast: “I don’t think it’s his fault we lost (to the Springboks) in the manner we did. We got it wrong badly. The set piece didn’t function and Eddie can’t come down and scrum for us. We need to sort that out. It’s not him.

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“We debriefed that. It was a highly emotive meeting. We got a lot of honest feedback. We had a lot of honest conversations. It definitely wasn’t sunshine and roses, as you would expect, but there weren’t chairs flying around the room or anything. But it was honest, real conversation.

“We will take onus for it. Eddie is brilliant. He takes a lot of heat off the players and says it’s his fault, he didn’t coach well enough. But personally and from a boys perspective, it is probably on us, to be honest.

“We got a lot wrong. We were prepped really well, we felt good going into the game and it’s one of those days, you find out a lot about each other. He’s the one hurting the most. He will be up for countless hours trying to figure out where we could have (gone) better.

“We’re trying to have a player-led environment. So that’s why it falls on us, essentially. We’re all invested. And as far as I’m aware, we’re all on the same page.”

There will be more on this as the story evolves.

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