Throughout his coaching career, Eddie Jones has masterminded some of the game’s most memorable moments and shocking results.
He was the last Wallabies head coach to taste Bledisloe Cup success, reached a Rugby World Cup final with Australia, and knocked the All Blacks out of the 2019 tournament with England.
He also steered England to a Grand Slam Six Nations success in 2016, his first year in charge of the team that crashed out of their home World Cup at the pool stages with team going on to win the Championship the following year.
In club rugby, he won Super Rugby back in 2001 with the Brumbies, and steered Suntory Sungoliath to a Top League.
And perhaps most famously, he led Japan to a historic first-ever victory over the Springboks during the 2015 Rugby World Cup pool stages.
Eddie Jones picks his greatest-ever coaching performance
That result is widely regarded as the greatest-ever upset in rugby history, but for Jones, it doesn’t rank as the best-ever performance that he has overseen, nor does the famous win over the All Blacks at the 2019 World Cup in Japan.
Jones was posed the question on the DSPN podcast with Martin Devlin: “Was the 2019 victory over the All Blacks the best-ever performance that you have coached? Better than beating South Africa with Japan in 2015?”
“No mate, 2003 semi,” Jones said, referencing his Wallabies team’s 22-10 victory over New Zealand.
“That was better, mate and particularly at home in Australia. I can remember the Sydney Morning Herald, my old mate Peter FitzSimons, saying Australia is going to be like rabbits in the headlights tonight, and it was nice. And you remember those things, and when it’s your own country, you go out there, the pressure is on, and New Zealand were expected to win.”
As Jones said above, Australia were clear underdogs heading into the last-four encounter, but he revealed that they had a clear plan on how they were going to depower the All Blacks’ counterattacking strength.
“You think about that New Zealand side, you know, John Mitchell was one of the greatest architects of counter-attacking play,” he continued.
“He had that basketball background, and they were a brilliant counterattacking team, and one of the things we were able to do that night was take that away from them.
“Now we worked out that Carlos kicked about 70% of his kicks to the right-hand side. Even back then, we had sort of a kick return policy of how we were going to bring the ball back and then how we were going to attack.
“If you look at that game, the first 20 minutes, New Zealand could have scored once or twice, they’re on our line, Carlos goes for the big play, Sterling Mortlock backs himself, makes a decision, ‘back me’ and away he goes and there’s the World Cup semi, but I can still remember that game clear as day.”
Devlin added: “People also forget that year that Mitchell’s All Blacks put 50 on the Boks in Pretoria and you blokes in Sydney, that was a seismic shock.”
Comparing scars with John Mitchell
Jones would later recruit Mitchell’s services, hiring the former All Blacks head coach as his assistant at England.
There, the two would revisit that night in Sydney, with Mitchell still scared by the result, much in the same way Jones is scared by England’s 2019 defeat to South Africa in Japan.
Since that semi-final defeat, Mitchell has gone on to win a World Cup with the England women’s team but has also held roles all over the globe, coaching the likes of the Western Force, Lions, Sale Sharks, USA, and Bulls. Jones hopes that now former All Blacks Scott Robertson will also bounce back and get into coaching again quickly.
“It’s a great story, isn’t it? Sometimes over a beer in England, we’d talk about that 2003 semi-final, and you could tell how much it hurt him because you never forget those games,” Jones said.
“I mentioned the 2019 World Cup; it sits here, you got a scar at the back of your head.
“He lost his job as the national team’s head coach, which is again your dream as a coach to coach your country.
“He’s been in a number of jobs, had a number of roles; he seems to have really found his spot with England women. He’s doing a great job, and it’s great to see him coaching again. So you’d hope, Scott Robertson finds his love back for the game and gets himself back in the coaching at the right spot.”
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