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Sam BruceOct 20, 2025, 10:31 AM<\/p>\n
Close<\/a>Sam was brought up on long drives and the dusty fields of north-west New South Wales, where he developed his love of rugby from an early age. He joined ESPN after a five-year stint heading up Fox Sports Australia’s digital rugby coverage.<\/p>\n Almost two years to the day that Eddie Jones<\/a> departed Australian rugby, only narrowly avoiding the door swatting him on his way out, the Wallabies<\/a> are set to come face to face with their former mentor in Tokyo.<\/p>\n Few people across the Australian rugby community shed a tear, if any at all, when Jones packed up his notebook and headed for Japan for a job he, to this day, maintains he had not taken before the Wallabies’ 2023 Rugby World Cup campaign descended into complete and utter chaos.<\/p>\n The fact Jones was unveiled as the Brave Blossoms coach a few weeks later is why that statement will forever be taken with more than just a few grains of salt.<\/p>\n But Jones’ biggest insult to the country that set him on his path to what has otherwise been a remarkable coaching career, which includes a Rugby World Cup triumph as an assistant, a further two finals in the top job, and what remains the game’s most storied upset, came a few months later.<\/p>\n “That’s the problem mate, we’ve got no hardness about us,” Jones said to Wallabies great James Slipper<\/a>, in an extraordinary moment that was captured by Stan’s documentary, The Wallabies.<\/p>\n “Game hardness is different to any sort of hardness, when you just stick in the f—— game and do it. There’s none of that in Australian rugby now, and that’s where the big gap is, mate.”<\/p>\n The statement, even from a bloke with a history of stunning one-liners, was incredible, and must have had the documentary’s loggers smiling from ear to ear. A project that was designed to chart what Australia hoped was going to be a successful World Cup campaign had descended into a trainwreck of epic proportions, and viewers simply wouldn’t be able to look away.<\/p>\n The Wallabies was going to prove as one of the all-time “hate watches” and Jones was squarely to blame.<\/p>\n But after all the drama, the Australian’s “hardness” comment cut to the core of the game Down Under.<\/p>\n Did Jones have a point? Was that one of the reasons why the Wallabies exited the World Cup at the pool stage for the first time… or was Eddie talking out of his you know where?<\/p>\n Thankfully, as it has turned out, nothing could be further than the truth: “hardness” wasn’t in as short a supply as Jones might have had you think.<\/p>\n While the British and Irish Lions series was lost, the fact the Wallabies salvaged a comprehensive win in the third Test was a sign that commentary was wide of the mark. A drought-breaking, 62-year first in Johannesburg was its confirmation.<\/p>\nEddie Jones talks to James Slipper during the Wallabies’ ill-fated 2023 Rugby World Cup campaign\u00a0SEBASTIEN BOZON\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n