Australian rugby needs a cash injection from a “Packer revolution” and a strategic plan to stop rugby league “killing rugby” in the fight for junior talent.
That was the opinion of Eddie Jones and one of many fascinating insights to emerge from a one-on-one chat between the Wallabies coach and Bulldogs supremo Phil Gould.
The unique cross-code conversation, which was filmed at Coogee Oval this week for Stan Sport, brought the two premiership-winning coaches together to chew over the finer points of coaching success and failure, current trends in both codes, sports science, the psychology of the modern athlete, and why star players often struggle to move into the coaches’ box.
Jones also shared the qualities needed for league players to switch codes, and how close he’d come to poaching Andrew Johns in 2005.
With Gould serving as a quasi-interviewer, the former Blues coach grilled Jones on why Australian rugby had fallen from the heights of the early 2000s and whether the atrophy of development pathways were to blame.
In the last decade, increasing numbers of junior rugby talent have been picked up by NRL clubs and turned into major stars of the 13-man game, like Cameron Murray, Angus Crichton and Joseph Sua’ali’i.
Eddie Jones and Phil Gould in the change rooms of Coogee Oval.Credit:Stan Sport
“The clubs have remained strong but there hasn’t been that evolution to identify talent and bring that talent through. That’s why rugby league is killing rugby at that age group at the moment,” Jones said.
Asked by Gould on how it can be fixed, Jones said: “That’s the $64 question. At some stage, someone strategic has to come in and say, ‘Enough is enough, and this is what we need to do’. As you know, it always costs money, to make that sacrifice to spend that money to get the game right in ten years time.
“It filters down [from Wallabies-generated revenue], but there is just not enough of it. There is not enough money to be made. At some stage in rugby there is going to be like a Packer revolution, where the game changes and a lot more money comes in and helps develop the players. I think that will happen at some stage.”
Jones didn’t specify how a Packer-style revolution would work, or what shape it would take. But Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan has spoken about striking a private equity deal, and is banking on windfalls from the British and Irish Lions tour in 2025 and the Rugby World Cup in 2027 to help clear debts and direct money into grassroots development and women’s rugby.
Jones also reflected on almost signing Johns in 2005 for the Waratahs and Wallabies. The deal fell over when the ARU baulked at Johns’ injury history, and the Newcastle Knights halfback decided to stay in league.
“We had Andrew Johns done, in 2005. He was ready to come and he would have made a hell of a difference,” Jones said.
In 2016, Jones said Australia should cut two teams and return to three Super Rugby sides. While stopping short of repeating that argument, Jones told Gould there had been too many sub-standard players.
“It became too easy for a while in Australia to play professional rugby with five teams but now we are getting to a stage where it is becoming more competitive and it’ll drive players to come through,” Jones said.
Eddie Jones and Phil Gould look at some old Randwick rugby pictures at Coogee Oval.Credit:Stan Sport
“Australia rugby was strongest when we only had three Super Rugby teams, and those teams were fairly settled. And they ran like club teams.
“I know when I was the Brumbies for four years and we ran that like a club team … but things have changed a little bit with five teams, and that club mentality at each of those Super Rugby teams has probably been lost a little bit. And that’s the opportunity going forward, to build that back up.”
Gould and Jones also bounced off each other around the increase scrutiny and awareness around head contact, concussion and the way both games have changed as a result.
“I am finding in our game, and I haven’t followed it as much in rugby, with concussion and the rule changes and tackling techniques, are the wrong people getting involved with this decision-making?” Gould asked.
Eddie Jones invited Andrew Johns along to an England training session before the third Test against the Wallabies in 2016.Credit:Steven Siewert
Jones: “What has happened is sports science and medicine, in a large part, has started running the sport. You go through periods where the sport was probably too unsafe, we allowed too much to go and the sport needs to get safer. And therefore the equilibrium balance has changed too much to that way, and I am sure it is going to come back to more common sense.”
Gould: “We have gone past it, haven’t we? Someone said to me in 15 years ago that contact sport won’t exist for our grandchildren, someone will take them out of the sporting landscape.”
Jones: “The history of the world shows that people like Gladiators. Why is the State of Origin so successful? Because people love seeing that. There is a place for it.”
Jones said Australian rugby had benefited from rugby league coaching over the last 30 years, in areas such as defensive structures. But it had also “to our detriment” started copying rugby league attacking shapes.
“I find rugby league is becoming more technical, a little bit like what rugby was with the rucks and the mauls, we are experiencing that with our rules as coaches become more adept at slowing the play or controlling the play,” Gould said.
“So it gets very technical, which I sometimes think leaves the junior or the rank and file fan a little bit behind in what’s actually happening out there. What game is it they’re playing, compared to what they grew up with.”
Jones added: “You want that balance between being organised and being able to playing instinctively. The great games of rugby league and the great games of rugby union have always got a bit of both. And the teams who are able to be strong in both of those areas are the great teams.”
Deep diving into how to get the best out of players as coaches, Gould and Jones agreed the modern games had become very complicated, and potentially over-coached, for players. Jones said the “mental” aspect of coaching was now the most important part.
“When I coached we didn’t have assistant coaches … now it is a very specialised role. I went to America and went to a lot of NFL franchises and saw what they were doing well, before we even tried it out here. But positional coaching and coaching every minute part of a position and the workspace of each player, and how that relates to other players … it’s become, we have more and more staff looking after less and less players, in trying to put a team strategy and a team style and to make the players the best they can be,” Gould said.
Jones said: “All of that is right but then you have to look at it from a player’s perspective, like how many different voices they get. Particularly players today, who are under pressure to perform, I think one of the things we have to worry about in a team environment is to minimise that noise for them. And to maximise the number of simple messages you have.”
Coaches corner: The Phil Gould and Eddie Jones conversation, is now available in full on Stan Sport.
