@MajorRage said in RWC Week 3: Wales v Australia:

So Australia sucked & Eddie is taking the flak. Might be time to reactivate my GAGR account .... !

In Defence Of Eddie Jones:

All jokes aside, I genuinely feel for Eddie. That press conference was fucking awful. Continually going on about Japan, even after he'd shut that line of questioning down. They took a man who was down & kicked the shit out of him. Many will argue that he deserved it (especially after his treatment of the press on the departure plane), but I for one do not agree with that. Eddie was right that there were unbelievably negative & defeatist. He was right to take them on then & he was right to treat them with disdain & in the press conference, he was right to sidestep the Japan questions too. They'd just lost, he'd failed on what he was employed to do & any decent analyst could come up with some good questions. Why did they have most of the ball but none of the points? Why was nobody standing back to return well placed kicks? Why did you play Donaldson replace him with Gordon, vice versa to the Fiji horror show? Instead they just booted him.

As I alluded to before, you do get what you deserve. Perhaps if Eddie had worked with them earlier on in the season, then things may have been better; he didn't. But that's the way he is, always has been and always will be. IT's fair to say that steering the Wallabies, he looked completely and utterly out of his depth. But lets face it, we all know he's not. He's got a superb record coaching international teams, especially in world cups. Eddie Jones IS an international quality coach, no question.

I personally think, like the NZRU, the rot comes from the very top. This is 100% on the people that are above him. He should never have been employed, Rennie may not have been doing the job that was wanted, but in hindsight, perhaps he was doing as good as could be done. Perhaps that was the current ceiling and a shitty world cup under steady coach was what was needed ahead of the biggest 4 years ahead for Australian rugby since the 01 Lions / 03 World Cup. Given the WC growth since then, arguably ever.

Instead they got a complete shambles. A team that played so far beneath the sum of its parts, it's laughable. A media who put themselves way way above their level & a fanbase that's watching the NRL. Eddie holds partial responsibility for one of those, but not all.

IT's a long road back for the ARU, and one that will work much better without Eddie Jones, than with it.

And that, for me, is a slam on the ARU management and board.

I’m with you on the second half of this, in that the primary blame comes from the top.

But as you even alluded to, Eddie made this bed for himself by being a complete piston wristed gibbon over and over again. He was a prick to journos that asked all the same type of questions that you wish they’d asked today. He was a prick to senior players that he didn’t pick (he absolutely threw Hopper under a bus in an interview last week, one of the more despicable things I’ve seen in a while).

And there were only 3 questions about Japan - the first one to him asking if it happened that was totally fair enough. The last one to Porecki to ask if the fact that there was a rumour like that going around affected them mentally - again, totally fair question . Only the 2nd could possibly cause umbrage, where the guy asked if he’d get a 2nd interview - I thought it was pretty funny.

But aside from doing their jobs, these reporters owe Eddie nothing. He’s been nothing but a prick to them since forever. Lies and belittling comments, stories changing to suit.

Eddie and Hamish should both be out the door.

The Silver Fern

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