Eddie Jones will be taking some time away from his national duties in Japan this Spring, as he focuses on a whole new venture – this time for ITV.
That’s correct, the outspoken Aussie will be donning our television screens in all his glory as a pundit during the 2025 Six Nations, giving his ever-colourful opinions straight from the studio to our living rooms. Replacing one outspoken coach with another, Jones finds himself on the punditry couch alongside Jonny Wilkinson as Sir Clive Woodward steps away from the set-up.
ITV will show four of England’s five matches during the 2025 Six Nations, with Jones’ inclusion hopefully providing fans with a fascinating insight into the England mindset.
Jones’s reputation in England has taken quite the battering since his time leading the national side to the World Cup final, so much so that after appearing back at Twickenham in November, the 64-year-old found himself confronted by “some clown” as he went down the stairs at half-time. “If there’s only one clown in 81,634, “that’s not bad” he said following England’s thumping of Japan that day, “I’m not going to repeat it here because I’ll get into trouble.”
Refusing to elaborate on what the ‘fan’ had said to him for fear of getting in trouble, Jones moved on to the recent allegations made about his coaching style in Danny Care’s new book, joking:
“‘I’ll tell you mate, I’ve got a new book deal. I just signed it today,’” said Jones. ‘It’s going to be called, ‘Caring about Care’ and you’ll get all the details. I’ve got pre-order forms up here, you can come up and get a pre-order form. Get them hot. I’m trying to do a deal with the Daily Mail, but we haven’t come to an agreement yet. If you want to read about it, there you go, it’ll be a good one. I’ll put a whole chapter in there ‘Caring about Care’”.
Many fans have been disappointed by Japan’s impact on international rugby within the past couple of years after such an impressive rise to the forefront of test rugby between 2015 and 2019. Since arriving back on the scene with Japan after stints with England and Australia, Jones hasn’t yet seen his side’s results improve. However, Eddie didn’t appear to be phased by the result, telling RugbyDump reporter Jack Tunney that the simple answer to solving his team’s problems is: time.
“There’s no magic solution” Eddie Jones tells me after Japan’s loss to England on Sunday pic.twitter.com/n5gFqNNtW7
— Jack Tunney (@JackTunneyRugby) November 25, 2024
“Time mate, and lessons like this. When you’ve got 200 caps, that means that most players have played 10 tests or less, so they don’t have any accumulated adaption on the field, so when something doesn’t go right they can’t adapt to it and you only learn that by doing it.
“I look at Marcus today, having brought him in when he was young, and now he’s so competent in his decision-making. He makes the right decisions most of the time, and he’s composed but he still has that bit of electricity.
“Now he’s 40 tests and that’s what you get from 40 tests so we’re just going to be patient and stick to the process and keep backing ourselves to be a bit different because we want to play differently, we want to play faster.
The former England and Wallaby boss concluded: “Yeah just stick to it mate, there’s no magic solution here”.
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