To watch The Wallabies, the just-released three-part documentary about Australia’s nine months in 2023 under Eddie Jones, borders on indecent, like rubbernecking at a terrible accident and then going around the block to come past and rubberneck again. And then again.
Jones’ arrival and departure as coach are the timeframe, and of course Jones is the central character.
His treachery is unsurprising. It is the matrix through which the World Cup campaign can be viewed. Every word of Jones’ can be measured against the knowledge that he was actively preparing to leave and coach Japan. For better or worse, his disingenuousness remains magnetic. Jones’ smarts are rarely disputed – in fact an excess of cleverness is often held against him – but the documentary is a sometimes poignant picture of a sporting leader who is the last to realise that the world has passed him by.
Jones’ treachery, now well-established through, brings to mind Scott Morrison’s performance in the ABC’s recent documentary Nemesis. In a direct Morrisonian parallel, Jones frequently says “I take responsibility” for a disaster before taking actions that show he really believes the exact opposite. At the beginning of 2023, he says “I take responsibility” for heavy defeats in the Rugby Championship, and then sheets it home to the players, ultimately the senior ones who paid with their World Cup places.
Like Morrison, he “takes responsibility” before passing it on to his staff and to the media. By the end, he is still taking-not-taking responsibility, telling the players he is “embarrassed by my own performance” after their World Cup-ending dismemberment by Wales before complaining to James Slipper that Australian rugby players lack the “toughness” and “hardness” required for international rugby. “That’s the problem, mate, we’ve got no hardness about us,” he tells Slipper. “There’s none of that in Australian rugby now, and that’s where the big gap is, mate.” The problem is systematic. It’s generational. It’s national. His final summary is as far from taking personal responsibility as is conceptually possible.
The Japan business is not dwelt on but it forms an overall context. We see him replying “I don’t know what you’re talking about” when asked if he has spoken to Japanese rugby. We see him committing, recommitting and re-recommitting to Australia when we know what was happening behind this gruesome scene. His words are allowed to speak for themselves.
Eddie Jones surveys Australia’s historic World Cup loss to Fiji.Credit: Getty
Jones’ lament about “toughness” is an ongoing current. You can see him yearning for a Simon Poidevin or a John Maxwell or a Tony Shaw, those figures of symbolic hardness who Jones grew up worshipping or playing alongside. You see a physical hunger for the likes of Rod Moore and Owen Finegan, coached by Jones during his first stint at the Wallabies. You see it for Sam Burgess or Mako Vunipola or the rest of Jones’ England team, against whom these Wallabies just don’t measure up. Ah, they don’t make them like they used to. Jones is trapped in a nostalgia that might be justified in a moaning spectator but hardly inspires confidence in a coach.
One of his first comments on meeting the Australian players is to deride their generation. “Most young people have a much shorter concentration span,” he has already decided, “because they’re on their phones. The most time they spend on any one website is 19 seconds.” There might be some truth in it. But how does he address it? To drone away for another epic speech. You could have the concentration span of a chess master and your eyes would be glazing, and wondering why he’s wearing that fake smile.
Fast Eddie and ScoMo take responsibility but it’s not their fault
10
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23.02.2024
To watch The Wallabies, the just-released three-part documentary about Australia’s nine months in 2023 under Eddie Jones, borders on indecent, like rubbernecking at a terrible accident and then going around the block to come past and rubberneck again. And then again.
Jones’ arrival and departure as coach are the timeframe, and of course Jones is the central character.
His treachery is unsurprising. It is the matrix through which the World Cup campaign can be viewed. Every word of Jones’ can be measured against the knowledge that he was actively preparing to leave and coach Japan. For better or worse, his disingenuousness remains magnetic. Jones’ smarts are rarely disputed – in fact an excess of cleverness is often held against him – but the documentary is a sometimes poignant picture of a sporting leader who is the last to realise that the world has passed him by.
Jones’ treachery, now well-established........
© The Sydney Morning Herald
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