Until the final whistle blows in tomorrow’s Rugby World Cup final, Eddie Jones is in charge of public enemy number one.
Ask the Springbok players that won the 2007 tournament, though, and you’ll find many of them have a soft spot for a man they say played a pivotal role in their success.
Jake White gets most of the plaudits for shaping that superb side, and rightly so, but behind the scenes, Jones was an immensely popular, and influential, character.
His involvement started a few weeks out from the 2007 World Cup, when White asked him to spend a week watching the Bok training sessions.
Here’s John Smit talking to the Independent:
…Smit remembered that first training session, at Bishops School in Cape Town, extremely well. Jones was watching from the sidelines, and afterwards Smit asked him what he thought. To Smit’s shock, Jones rated the session “maybe four out of 10”. “Quite honestly,” Smit later said, I thought we had shot the lights out. He was quite honest about his assessment, but he said it in a nice way, and gave you ways to fix it.”
White was instantly convinced that Jones could bring a great deal to the coaching team, and asked him to stay on as a consultant:
Jones’s reply was tart and to the point: “Can you turn silver into gold, mate?” He wanted to know, above all, if the talented Springboks genuinely believed they were potential world champions.
The South African Rugby Union, or SARU, weren’t over the moon about a foreign coach. They eventually relented, but insisted on one condition:
…that he would not be an official member of the touring party, and thus would not be issued with a team blazer.
The rest, as they say, is history. The Boks went on to beat the English 15-6 in an ugly final, with Jones’ expertise crucial.
Bryan Habana was clearly a fan:
“We got the fun-loving Eddie,” says winger Bryan Habana. “He didn’t have to speak in a press conference, or to administrators. He didn’t come in and take charge. He just gave us little nuggets of wisdom, an insight into how outsiders saw us. He has an incredible rugby brain. His nuances are some of the best I’ve ever seen.”
At the medal ceremony after the final win, White stepped aside and let Jones get his medal first, but his official Springbok World Cup blazer was not to be.
Until the players took matters into their own hands:
…as he took his leave and flew to Japan the day after the final, the players hatched a touching plan.
SARU were still adamant that Jones was not eligible for an official team blazer. A few weeks afterwards, however, Jones walked into the office at Saracens to be greeted by an enormous parcel. On opening it, he discovered Habana’s World Cup blazer, which he had framed and sent to Jones in recognition of the debt they all owed him.
“Because I really valued the input Eddie had, I gave him my blazer,” Habana says now. “I hope it’s hanging somewhere in his house. He’s a good man.”
Jones has already written his name into rugby history, masterminding perhaps the greatest rugby upset of all time when his Japanese side downed the Boks in 2015, and he is one win away from adding another World Cup title to his list of career achievements.
Here’s hoping we deny him that title, but he deserves immense respect for the career he has enjoyed thus far.
Hey, at least it won’t be Michael Cheika holding the William Webb Ellis trophy, because that man is a truly awful human.
[source:independent]
