Eddie Jones fighting for England survival as senior coach threatens to quit

The RFU review panel met yesterday (Monday) to analyse England’s disappointing performances in the autumn international series. The big decision it faces is whether Jones should remain in his job. Warren Gatland, who was considered the frontrunner to replace Jones if he were to be sacked, returned to the role of Wales head coach yesterday (Monday).

It is understood that if Jones stays, the fallout will be significant among his staff, with one of his top coaches already looking at a future elsewhere and others likely to go too. The levels of frustration and dissatisfaction around Jones’s England camp are so extreme that coaches, medics and analysts have left at an unprecedented rate since the Australian took over seven years ago.

Jones lost three more employees over the autumn: Henry Mander, an analyst who left just before the international series, Richard Tingay, the team doctor who left just after it, and Danny Kerry, the coaching guru who led the England women’s hockey team to their gold medal at the Rio Olympics in 2016. Kerry and Tingay remain as RFU employees but have almost completely cut their ties with the senior England team.

In every case, Jones’s tough management style has been cited as a key reason for the departures.

With only nine months to go until the start of the Rugby World Cup, the RFU has a difficult decision to make on the head coach’s future. Jones is contracted to stay until the end of the tournament in France next year. Firing him now and changing the head coach so close to the World Cup is a risk.

However, after England won only one of their four internationals in the November series, Jones has the team delivering consistently their worst results since he took over. The RFU will also therefore be taking a big chance if it elects to stick with him.

The RFU panel will put its recommendation to the RFU board today (Tuesday). An announcement will then follow either later today (Tuesday) or tomorrow (Wednesday) morning.

Jones’s assistant coaches, Matt Proudfoot, Martin Gleeson and Richard Cockerill, all had a meeting with the RFU at Twickenham yesterday (Monday) afternoon, leaving together at 5pm.

Part of the decision will rest on the alternative solutions. Gatland, who has coached Wales at the past three World Cups, had appeared to be a good one, but the Welsh Rugby Union announced yesterday (Monday) that it had hired Gatland as its own emergency solution.

The structure around the England team has become a crumbling edifice. If Bill Sweeney, the RFU chief executive, and his board stick with Jones, the gamble that they take is that the implosion will not continue.

- The Times

Originally published as Eddie Jones fighting for England survival as senior coach threatens to quit