Eddie Jones Handed Ultimatum

The RFU have given head coach Eddie Jones an ultimatum that England must deliver a successful autumn campaign after a poor 2018 thus far.

The Red Rose endured a disappointing Six Nations campaign in which they finished fifth before losing a three-Test series 2-1 in South Africa in June.

England’s rugby bosses showed their loyalty to Jones in the face of fierce criticism, but have warned Jones that he is on thin ice.

“We plan to win every game we play. We expect success in the autumn,” RFU chief executive Steve Brown said.

“I don’t want to predict failure, I’d rather predict success, but that’s not in blind faith. They’re all big matches. We’re planning to come out of the other side successful.”

And Brown made it clear although this year’s decline was unacceptable, one must look at it as a very short period in an otherwise highly successful tenure.

“I’ve reflected over the time Eddie has been at his post and his win rate (80 per cent). The win rate is still very high – it’s significant and it’s hard to argue against it,” Brown said.

“It’s important that we don’t just make a judgement on what’s happened in the very short term. Nevertheless, it was a pretty poor run of results.

“We showed great character for the result in Cape Town but the series result was disappointing, there’s no question about it. So was the Six Nations. Coming fifth in the Six Nations was a pretty difficult situation.

“The last result in South Africa was important, but not critical to any decisions we make about the future.

“The confidence comes from the history to date and talking to Eddie about the plans for the autumn and the World Cup and how to get back to that win rate. 

“I’ve discussed this with Eddie and I’m confident those disappointing results are behind us and can be turned around.”

I wonder what the anti-Jake brigade think of this? Is Jones the Rassie of Australia rugby? A gimmick, quick fix coach? Who would the RFU find so close to the World Cup? As much as I like Jones, I find he can be a bit restrictive. The anti-Jake horde had in mind that Jones was the free spirited visionary to allow players to express themselves; He is in fact a very strict authoritarian who does not lean towards player power. He believes the less a player thinks, the less likely he is to fall into error and focus on his task. Is his approach wearing down the England squad? Does he need to employ a new twist to the formula? Opposition seeing through an overrated squad? It's been interesting seeing what the English themselves think. This could be Jake's 2006 for Jones. To have faith or jettison Jones? 

It is strange that England went from an 18 game win streak to 5th in the six nations and a rubbish series against us. But it does enforce my theory of how important mentality is in sport. Up until the loss that broke England's winning streak, teams believed they were near invincible. Even on this site we were wishing they could play the All Blacks, because they'd probably win. After the loss, other teams realised they were in fact just another team that could be beaten. It is the same with the AB's, but to a greater extent. How many internationals have the AB's won by the skin of their teeth over the last couple of years? A lot is the answer, but it is the mental edge that pushes them over the line and it is the lack of mental belief that has seen their opponents fall short. 

Anyway, back to Jones. It seems, like many others, that he is able to hit the ground running and have a great impact in a very short amount of time, but after a while his success seems to wain. Why that is is anyone's guess, but my theory is that his players, for whatever reason, seem to lose faith in him after time.   

Lurker

I think your assessment is garbled at best.   Jones are a completely different coach from White and he has a much better grasp of all facets of comprehensive rugby than White has.   White is an authoritarian  with a nasty streak of favouring some players and getting teams divided like he did at the Sharks,   

I can see something went wrong with the English team - but there is a totally different reason as the one given by you.   Fact is the losses of England was  against the Scots, the French and the Irish as well as 2 out of three against SA.   Against the Scots England fielded a  rather experimental team - not the strongest one - and against France the loss was marginal,   Ireland is the best NH team at present by some distance.  

As to SA the position is that after three disastrous years under Meyer nd Coetzee - we now have a coach trying to rebuild the team and indications are that he is getting the team set-up better than expected,   At th is stage there is uncertainty as to whether the position of the team is now better than it was in 2015 - when SA lost all the RC matches.   The RC is coming up and we will within the next two months see how far the team has progressed.    

Any real deductions from what happened insofar as the English team is concerned can only be made after the real strength of  the SA rugby team has been determined.            

Mike, it is early days. Lets first see how we do in the Rugby Champs before we get too excited about how much progress we have made. I like Rassie, but England's strength is somewhat unknown, but judging by their performance in the Six nations, they may be relatively weak. So like last year against the French, we have come off a good series win, but the real barometer is the Rugby Champs. Depending on how we fair in that tournament, we'll know weather or not the Boks under Rassie are really worth getting excited about. 

Bluebok

My line of thinking too.   It is too early to judge the England situation compared to SA,   We must first see what happen in the RC.  

Bluebok

My line of thinking too.   It is too early to judge the England situation compared to SA,   We must first see what happen in the RC.  

Clever Mike, Jones is indeed an authoritarian. He has been known as such since the 90s. At first the Aussies didn't mind this, but, it eventually started to wear thin with both players, fans, his bosses and the coaching fraternity. He is not as well received in Australia as you'd expect. To say he understands rugby more completely, which is laughable. He has his area of expertise, particularly the link between 9 and 10, but he is not what you say.

As far as the similarities, they are manifold: 1.Pressure from the fans, 2.Pressure from the board, 3.A series of disappointing results. Jones could even lose the dressing room. I think it would be foolish to ditch Jones in the long run, but it's deniable that he is in a big rut.