Throughout his glittering career, Eddie Jones has suffered several setbacks but he has just one regret.<\/p>\n
His Wallabies team was beaten by a clutch Jonny Wilkinson drop goal in the 2003 Rugby World Cup final in Australia and his England<\/a> side fell to a defeat at the hands of the Springboks 16 years later.<\/p>\n After masterminding South Africa\u2019s downfall in their opening game of the 2015 World Cup<\/a>, his Japan outfit failed to reach the knockout stages of the competition.<\/p>\n Eddie Jones\u2019 only regret<\/p>\n The list goes on and on as Jones<\/a> has suffered and celebrated on both sides of professional sport\u2019s brutality.<\/p>\n But the 66-year-old globetrotting veteran coach has just one regret from his coaching career and it\u2019s not any of the above.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only regret I have is Australia<\/a> in 2023,\u201d Jones told the DSPN podcast with Martin Devlin<\/a>, referencing his decision to take over the reins as the Wallabies head coach in the year of a World Cup after leaving England.<\/p>\n Jones came in to replace Dave Rennie at the helm of the Wallabies, a controversial decision from Rugby Australia, just months before the tournament in France.<\/p>\n It left the experienced coach with a short runway before the tournament and he was unable to really implement change quickly enough and it ended disastrously with Australia failing to progress past the pool stages of a World Cup for the first time, with Jones parting ways with the Wallabies after the tournament.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t regret doing the job, but if I had my time again\u2026 I basically signed to do 2027. I didn\u2019t want to do 2023. Like, who takes over a World Cup team in the year of the World Cup?\u201d Jones continued.<\/p>\n \u201cTraining-wise, we had four days of training in Australia before we got on a plane to fly to South Africa. So, we had no preparation time. You\u2019re trying to create a new style of play because when a coach changes, you need to bring something new in, generally speaking. And I tried to do too much.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t regret having a go at it, but I regret that I should have probably been a bit more moderate in how I went about it.\u201d<\/p>\n Opinion: England need to find the truth by heeding lessons from Springboks and smoking Antoine Dupont<\/a><\/p>\n 2019 defeat to the Springboks<\/p>\n Four years prior, Jones had led England\u2019s inspired run to the 2019 Rugby World Cup final, stunning the defend champion All Blacks in the semi-finals.<\/p>\n However, his team came unstuck in the final against Rassie Erasmus\u2019 Springboks, falling to a 32-12 defeat.<\/p>\n Reflecting on that defeat, Jones admits that he didn\u2019t change his matchday 23 up enough in the build-up to the final.<\/p>\n \u201cWe chopped and changed the team throughout that tournament. Kept the team fresh all the time. Made one or two changes all the time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had a reasonably good depth in the squad and just some subtle changes, sometimes starting with Joe Marler, sometimes starting with Mako [Vunipola], they were different sorts of players, we had a few players like that.<\/p>\n Opinion: England\u2019s \u2018selection policy\u2019 is potentially unlawful, cartel-esque and killing English rugby<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThe one thing I regret is that I didn\u2019t change the team, I just needed to send the message that we still can get better, maybe. In those situations, the subtlety of your message can have such an effect on the team, and I don\u2019t think the message I gave the team was good enough.<\/p>\n \u201cWe spoke about all the things we know that they are going to come hard; we know they\u2019re going to be physical. This is what we have to do.<\/p>\n