{"id":656098,"date":"2026-05-07T19:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T19:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/656098\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T19:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T19:05:09","slug":"newcastle-red-bulls-stephen-jones-excited-by-wonderful-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/656098\/","title":{"rendered":"Newcastle Red Bulls: Stephen Jones excited by’ ‘wonderful challenge’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jones says he has had lots of conversations so far with McFarland, who is currently working for Kobelco Kobe Steelers in Japan.<\/p>\n

But the interim head coach is looking forward to how the new coaching team will come up with a blueprint for the new Newcastle.<\/p>\n

“When we get together as a coaching group, that’ll be exciting,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We’ll be discussing concepts on how we want to play, what’s our DNA, what’s this club’s identity and how we can best bring that together.<\/p>\n

“There are lots of pieces of the puzzle that when we connect, we’ve got to make sure we’re clear on our vision and our alignment.” <\/p>\n

Before then, Newcastle have four games left of The Prem season, starting with the visit of Harlequins on Sunday (15:00 BST).<\/p>\n

Red Bulls have lost all four of Jones’ league games in charge as they sit bottom of the table, nine points adrift of Quins.<\/p>\n

The former Wales and British and Irish Lions fly-half says there have been improvements in the six weeks he has been in charge since replacing Alan Dickens<\/a>, but a second league win of the season would change the narrative.<\/p>\n

And Newcastle have a favorable fixture list with only one of their games coming against a top-six club. <\/p>\n

“We can look at statistics and we can see improvement, but professional sport is all about winning,” said Jones.<\/p>\n

“We’re desperate for that win. We can talk things up that we’re making improvements – which we are from a statistical point of view – but the most important thing is winning and we want a ‘W’ as soon as we can. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jones says he has had lots of conversations so far with McFarland, who is currently working for Kobelco…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-656098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656098","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=656098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}