blackfriday
Juniors
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the problem with skeepe's arguement is that he refuses to support his arguement with fact.
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Auckland4ever said:
skeepe said:
Auckland4ever said:
SMH said:A brilliant rugby mind with a cutting edge
By Greg Growden
Saturday, December 3, 2005
Eddie Jones is an excellent rugby coach. His knowledge of the game is second to none. His work ethic is beyond reproach. There is no doubt he will get another prestigious coaching job within days, hours even.
There is no greater student of the game. There is no one more obsessed with total rugby. It is his life. After all, what other coach spends his holidays heading to another part of the world, not to sit on a banana lounge but to coach a rugby team?
There is no one who loves talking more about rugby than Eddie Jones. And he has always fronted up whenever disaster befell his team - which was quite often.
He was without doubt the most media savvy of any recent Wallabies coach. Whereas Rod Macqueen deliberately kept the information flow to a minimum, Jones was always available. Jones would always return telephone calls, devoting an enormous amount of time each day to attending to every need of the media.
He was clever in that regard. He realised that keeping the lines open was the smartest way of heading anyone off at the pass because he would always be able to get his say on whatever rugby issue was buzzing around that day.
Keeping in constant contact with the scribes also ensured he was informed about what was happening in the background - an important asset - especially as rugby politics ranks among the grubbiest. In rugby, it is better to know who your enemies are, rather than your allies - because they are constantly changing.
However, where Jones let his standards slip was in his one-on-one relationship with players and fellow officials. In his footballing days, Jones was renowned as one of the nastiest sledgers going around in the Sydney club ranks. The start of the frosty relationship between Eddie Jones and past Wallabies coach Alan Jones can actually be pinpointed to some derogatory on-field comments made at Manly Oval in the early 1980s by the Randwick hooker about the then Manly first-grade coach. Alan Jones has never forgotten.
Eddie Jones has since then calmed down somewhat, but he still has a caustic tongue. He as been known at times to delight in belittling his staff, which for a time could be wickedly funny, but after a while really grated and unnecessarily upset colleagues. This led to several excellent Wallabies assistant coaches walking out - Andrew Blades and Roger Gould among them.
One celebrated story involves a very well-known international coach whom Jones recently attempted to recruit to be his assistant at the Wallabies. The candidate told Jones if he was spoken to as derogatorily as several previous assistant coaches had been, in particular Ewen McKenzie, the Wallabies boss was in danger of "getting one on the chin". The highly rated candidate knocked back the job.
Another Jones weakness was his love of statistics. He would constantly reel out amazing figures. The problem was that quite a number of them were misleading - in particular his constant reminder that more than 14 Test players had missed the recent European tour. The reality was only about two or three of them - Stephen Larkham and Dan Vickerman the most obvious - would have been in the Test team if available.
Jones is a control freak and his obsession with rugby became stifling. There was never any escape.
Even so, Eddie Jones has countless endearing qualities. But like so many high achievers there was also another side to his character. It was that darker side which led to his downfall.
skeepe said:
