NPR

Grandpa wrote: Thu Feb 10, 2022 10:01 am

Kawazaki wrote: Thu Feb 10, 2022 9:46 am

Grandpa wrote: Thu Feb 10, 2022 9:45 am

Yeah, he's not one to muffle his own trumpet... he doesn't hate it in the UK. He just likes to build himself up.. make out that he has a big job to do and by golly you better all appreciate it...

Can you imagine if you're a Premiership DoR and you read that?

Jones is a fucking idiot, a total and utter wanker.

And they probably know that so likely aren't too bothered by it...

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Feb 10, 2022 10:43 am Thoroughly enjoying my mental image of Toga's face when a well meaning relative gave him Eddie's book as a Christmas present because they know he likes rugby, and then him aggressively hate reading it.

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Feb 10, 2022 10:43 am Thoroughly enjoying my mental image of Toga's face when a well meaning relative gave him Eddie's book as a Christmas present because they know he likes rugby, and then him aggressively hate reading it.

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Feb 10, 2022 10:43 am Thoroughly enjoying my mental image of Toga's face when a well meaning relative gave him Eddie's book as a Christmas present because they know he likes rugby, and then him aggressively hate reading it.

average joe wrote: Thu Feb 10, 2022 12:42 pm I remember Eddies Australia with guys like Gregan, Larkham, Latham, Mortlock, Smith ect. They where relentless, they'll come at you wave after wave, non stop. I remember one game against the Boks were they must have strung something like 30 phases together. They were a good hard team back then and they never seem to change much

Kawazaki wrote: Thu Feb 10, 2022 1:13 pm

average joe wrote: Thu Feb 10, 2022 12:42 pm I remember Eddies Australia with guys like Gregan, Larkham, Latham, Mortlock, Smith ect. They where relentless, they'll come at you wave after wave, non stop. I remember one game against the Boks were they must have strung something like 30 phases together. They were a good hard team back then and they never seem to change much

Rod Macqueen.

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Feb 10, 2022 10:43 am Thoroughly enjoying my mental image of Toga's face when a well meaning relative gave him Eddie's book as a Christmas present because they know he likes rugby, and then him aggressively hate reading it.

JM2K6 wrote: Thu Feb 10, 2022 2:42 pm

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Feb 10, 2022 10:43 am Thoroughly enjoying my mental image of Toga's face when a well meaning relative gave him Eddie's book as a Christmas present because they know he likes rugby, and then him aggressively hate reading it.

I got a framed print of Wayne Barnes yellow carding Luke McAllister in that quarter-final against France and took it 13,500 miles with me to present to Enzedder in a pub in Hamilton.

You really have to commit to the bit, you know?

eldanielfire wrote: Thu Feb 10, 2022 6:04 pm

JM2K6 wrote: Thu Feb 10, 2022 2:42 pm

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Feb 10, 2022 10:43 am Thoroughly enjoying my mental image of Toga's face when a well meaning relative gave him Eddie's book as a Christmas present because they know he likes rugby, and then him aggressively hate reading it.

I got a framed print of Wayne Barnes yellow carding Luke McAllister in that quarter-final against France and took it 13,500 miles with me to present to Enzedder in a pub in Hamilton.

You really have to commit to the bit, you know?

My opinion of you just increased a thousand fold

JM2K6 wrote: Thu Feb 10, 2022 2:42 pm

Paddington Bear wrote: Thu Feb 10, 2022 10:43 am Thoroughly enjoying my mental image of Toga's face when a well meaning relative gave him Eddie's book as a Christmas present because they know he likes rugby, and then him aggressively hate reading it.

I got a framed print of Wayne Barnes yellow carding Luke McAllister in that quarter-final against France and took it 13,500 miles with me to present to Enzedder in a pub in Hamilton.

You really have to commit to the bit, you know?

RUGBY UNION | MATTHEW SYED
Why Eddie Jones is turning into rugby’s Dominic Cummings
Matthew Syed

When England were near the end of their streak of 18 victories under their new head coach Eddie Jones, I attended a leadership conference at which the Australian was one of the headline speakers. I am not sure I have seen an audience quite as rapt, listening to a man who speaks with a disarmingly colloquial manner but is also capable of ranging across philosophy, leadership and life.
Across 30 or so minutes, he talked about how his years as a teacher had helped him to unlock the best in people. He talked about how a friend — a general manager of a luxury hotel — had helped him to grasp the importance of treating everyone with courtesy and respect. He talked about how people reach their own form of greatness when they are liberated from fear.
Jones also spoke about his own journey as a person: learning about fortitude and self-reliance as a mixed-race boy in predominantly white Australia; the stroke in 2013 that had helped him to find religion; how his time as a coach in Japan helped him to realise that an understanding of the history of a nation is crucial to shaping the mentality of a team.

Much of this is, I think, progressive and positive, and explains why his words made such an impact on the audience. This was a coach who wasn’t merely a keen student of rugby but also curious enough to ponder the broader context. Little wonder that many of the reviews of Jones in those early days held him up as representative of a new paradigm in sports leadership.
But the longer Jones has been at the helm, the more difficult it has been to square his rhetoric on the conference circuit with his actions as a coach. In a podcast appearance with Jake Humphrey and Damian Hughes last year, it almost felt like listening to a man living in a parallel universe to his team.
While talking about nurturing support staff, for example, Jones failed to note the unprecedented churn in everything from coaching to medical personnel since he took over. I have chatted to some of these people and they talked of Jones ripping into colleagues for seemingly no reason. Even those who admire Jones, not least for his detailed knowledge of the game and driven mentality, say the explosive gyrations in his mood destabilised the culture.
One might also note the contrast between Jones’s sentiments about understanding the history of nations where he coaches with his sentiments about some of those closest to him. “I always felt there was a slight hatred to the English,” one former staff member told this newspaper last year, “references to what we were like as a country. We’re this, we’re that.”

Then there is Jones’s rhetoric about taking personal responsibility for results while blaming those around him when things go wrong. Or consider his claim that as a teacher he realised the importance of empathy. This is the opposite of what insiders say of a man whose bulldozer approach is applied unsparingly to everyone: players and staff. As Danny Cipriani told me: “I have never worked with a coach who took less time to understand the players as human beings.”

Perhaps the most jarring thing of all is when Jones reaches for management-speak. He eulogises the importance of “critical candour” while shutting down dissent the moment there is something he doesn’t want to hear; he waxes lyrical about a “challenging environment” but is said to brook no challenge to himself; he talks of his mantra being “deep work” while treating his team like kids. As Dylan Hartley put it in his autobiography: “I went through a phase of dreading going away and I know other England players felt similarly . . . we were bonded by the ripples in Eddie’s character and constrained by the ludicrous convention that athletes, like Victorian children, should be seen and not heard.”
In short, Jones is a coach whose words and deeds seem to inhabit completely different hemispheres. In this sense, he reminds me a little of Dominic Cummings, who has written beautiful blog posts about the rule of law and co-operation but whose every action seems designed to obliterate co-operation and tear down established norms. It is as if Cummings’s musings on politics never make an impact on that furnace of insecurity and raw ambition we call character.
The former England captain Hartley said that he and other players “dreaded going away” with Jones and that they were bonded by his capricious behaviour

And isn’t this why, in the case of Jones, his career is such a rollercoaster, with occasional highs juxtaposed with crushing lows? When the stars align and he is able to bend everything to his will there is the fleeting appearance of excellence. One thinks, in particular, of the 2019 World Cup semi-final victory over New Zealand. He has also delivered a grand slam in 2016 and two other Six Nations titles, in 2017 and 2020. In between, though, it seems that morale is invariably broken on the rock of his ego, with the collateral damage expressed in woeful results. Fifth-placed finishes in the Six Nations in 2018 and 2021 represent scant return on the immense resources lavished upon Jones by the RFU.
And I suspect that however long Jones remains as England coach, this pattern will remain locked in place: a pattern of a squad and staff that always start out with high hopes but who become ever more exhausted by demands that seem less about winning and more about Jones’s insecurities. With some coaches, even amid the turbulence of international sport, you see the hallmarks of a journey, even if the team ultimately fail to reach the final destination. With Jones, though, it feels less like a journey and more like a psychodrama. He is one of those rare people where the grander his language, the smaller he seems.

Uncle fester wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 10:59 am Can England chuck him at this stage in the world cup cycle? Time to dump him was end last season.

Uncle fester wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 10:59 am Can England chuck him at this stage in the world cup cycle? Time to dump him was end last season.

Uncle fester wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 10:59 am Can England chuck him at this stage in the world cup cycle? Time to dump him was end last season.

Happyhooker wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 11:15 am We can't afford to buy him out of his contract

JM2K6 wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 11:45 am

Uncle fester wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 10:59 am Can England chuck him at this stage in the world cup cycle? Time to dump him was end last season.

If money were no object, doing it immediately post 6N would still leave enough time for a new coach to bed in.

Uncle fester wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 1:00 pm

JM2K6 wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 11:45 am

Uncle fester wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 10:59 am Can England chuck him at this stage in the world cup cycle? Time to dump him was end last season.

If money were no object, doing it immediately post 6N would still leave enough time for a new coach to bed in.

Would also be tough to get a suitable replacement. Anybody good enough is likely to already be tied down and it'll cost more moohlah to buy them out of their contracts.

Grandpa wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 2:47 pm

Uncle fester wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 1:00 pm

JM2K6 wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 11:45 am

If money were no object, doing it immediately post 6N would still leave enough time for a new coach to bed in.

Would also be tough to get a suitable replacement. Anybody good enough is likely to already be tied down and it'll cost more moohlah to buy them out of their contracts.

Would Scott Robertson be too expensive?

Grandpa wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 2:47 pm

Uncle fester wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 1:00 pm

JM2K6 wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 11:45 am

If money were no object, doing it immediately post 6N would still leave enough time for a new coach to bed in.

Would also be tough to get a suitable replacement. Anybody good enough is likely to already be tied down and it'll cost more moohlah to buy them out of their contracts.

Would Scott Robertson be too expensive?

Uncle fester wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 10:59 am Can England chuck him at this stage in the world cup cycle? Time to dump him was end last season.

Ymx wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 3:40 pm

Grandpa wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 2:47 pm

Uncle fester wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 1:00 pm

Would also be tough to get a suitable replacement. Anybody good enough is likely to already be tied down and it'll cost more moohlah to buy them out of their contracts.

Would Scott Robertson be too expensive?

Pipe down you treacherous bastard !!

Grandpa wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 2:47 pm

Uncle fester wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 1:00 pm

JM2K6 wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 11:45 am

If money were no object, doing it immediately post 6N would still leave enough time for a new coach to bed in.

Would also be tough to get a suitable replacement. Anybody good enough is likely to already be tied down and it'll cost more moohlah to buy them out of their contracts.

Would Scott Robertson be too expensive?

Grandpa wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 3:49 pm

Ymx wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 3:40 pm

Grandpa wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 2:47 pm

Would Scott Robertson be too expensive?

Pipe down you treacherous bastard !!

Well they're not going to go after Foster are they...

It would serve the NZRU right if Razor was lost to another country... much as I would love him to take over the All Blacks immediately...

Slick wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 3:50 pm

Grandpa wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 2:47 pm

Uncle fester wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 1:00 pm

Would also be tough to get a suitable replacement. Anybody good enough is likely to already be tied down and it'll cost more moohlah to buy them out of their contracts.

Would Scott Robertson be too expensive?

I'm sure Scott Johnson could be tempted

Slick wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 3:48 pm

Uncle fester wrote: Fri Feb 11, 2022 10:59 am Can England chuck him at this stage in the world cup cycle? Time to dump him was end last season.

Don't give them any ideas FFS

OomStruisbaai wrote: Tue Mar 08, 2022 10:25 am Eddie Jones two wins away from 6 Nations title.

Dinsdale Piranha wrote: Sat Mar 12, 2022 10:55 pm Eddie Jones blaming the younger players for the loss.

How about looking in the sodding mirror for the cause, eh Jones?

There was a Lancaster-esque “sub your way to defeat” about the last 20.