{"id":424462,"date":"2026-01-20T01:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T01:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/424462\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T01:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T01:52:08","slug":"eddie-jones-questions-new-zealand-rugbys-reasons-behind-scott-robertson-departure-as-all-blacks-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/424462\/","title":{"rendered":"Eddie Jones questions New Zealand Rugby\u2019s reasons behind Scott Robertson departure as All Blacks coach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speaking on the Rugby Unity podcast, Jones said that, speaking from experience at his time at the ACT Brumbies, you have to be careful making big calls like that based on anonymous end-of-season reviews.<\/p>\n

\"EddieEddie Jones: “Any disgruntled player now, they can take it into that survey … You’ve got to be careful about these things, particularly anonymous surveys.” Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery team now, generally speaking, does an anonymous team survey at the end of the season. Any disgruntled player now, they can take it into that survey,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the Brumbies, I was a young coach coming through, and they did a survey in the first year where we came 10th. We were terrible, and we didn\u2019t do anything to change what had been done before; we basically ran with the model that was there, which had been successful.<\/p>\n

\u201cNext year, we changed it to train much harder, had a different approach to the game, players became a lot more accountable, we were more demanding of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember the survey came back and everything was s***, but we came fifth and that was on the way to becoming champions. You\u2019ve got to be careful about these things, particularly anonymous surveys.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure the high-performance team that looked at it from a New Zealand point of view looked at it very thoroughly and looked at all of that, but you do have to be careful on the surface of what you get back from surveys like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

There has been no timeline placed on how soon NZR would want to make an appointment, but with the All Blacks set to tour South Africa this year, a decision sooner rather than later would likely be preferred.<\/p>\n

Jamie Joseph<\/a> is currently the leading candidate, but he\u2019s set to coach the Highlanders in the upcoming Super Rugby Pacific season, with their first pre-season game scheduled for January 30. However, across the Tasman, new Wallabies coach Les Kiss will also remain as Queensland Reds coach this season before replacing Joe Schmidt in the role.<\/p>\n

Jones feels NZR needed to provide more clarity on their decision to part ways with Robertson.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe implication is that the senior players didn\u2019t trust the coaching team … based on? What didn\u2019t they trust them on?\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t actually know the detail. They tell you everything else, but they don\u2019t tell you the crucial point,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s not based on results \u2013 which it isn\u2019t \u2013 and it\u2019s about senior players not trusting the coaching group, then what exactly didn\u2019t they trust? There\u2019s been no mention of that. Was it selection? Was it the captaincy? Was it the way they were playing or training? Was it conversations or stories that were told? What was it?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in a season review myself where I made one comment to a player he didn\u2019t like \u2013 that can happen \u2013 and that suddenly became a question of whether the coaching was up to standard.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, that\u2019s a key issue that needs to be discussed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones did rule out any speculation he would put his hand up for the role, saying: \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019m a candidate, so let\u2019s not go there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ben Francis<\/a> is an Auckland-based reporter for the New Zealand Herald who covers breaking sports news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speaking on the Rugby Unity podcast, Jones said that, speaking from experience at his time at the ACT…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[3265,10960,64,63,81,163839,23182,9658,3181,26359,223066,223065,223068,4443,3127,6622,154097,223067,59906,111177,228,9669,760,44985,9660,85,93597,3605,3205],"class_list":["post-424462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-all","tag-as","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian","tag-based","tag-behind","tag-blacks","tag-coach","tag-decision","tag-departure","tag-eddie","tag-endofseason","tag-jones","tag-new","tag-part","tag-prominent","tag-questioned","tag-questions","tag-reasons","tag-review","tag-robertson","tag-rugby","tag-rugbys","tag-scott","tag-sports","tag-ways","tag-with","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}