Eddie Jones is never afraid of ruffling a few feathers. Be it speaking about opposition teams, the media, or even his own players, you can never be quite sure what he is going to say.
This approach has certainly rubbed people up the wrong way in this past, although there is no chance of the Aussie changing his ways at this stage of his career. After all, he has proven that it often works.
Despite only being in the Australia job for a couple of months, it appears as though he is already pissing off people in his native country.
Some Australians getting annoyed by Eddie Jones approach
Eddie Jones has shown that he is not afraid to thin outside the box when it comes to gaining an advantage for his teams. With Australia, that includes looking to rugby league in order to deepen his playing pool.
This is something he did to great effect during his first stint in charge of the Wallabies, with a number of players moving from the 13-man game to become key players in the side.
He has attempted to reignite that trend, although attempts to lure Joseph Suaalii from the Sydney Roosters were unfruitful. Now, Jones has reportedly switched his focus to Cameron Murray of the South Sydney Rabbitohs.
This brazen effort to take players from rugby league has not gone down well in some quarters.
Speaking to the Herald Sun, well-known agent David Rawlings said that Rugby Australia risked losing the top players already playing under their umbrella if they focused too much of their efforts on recruiting rugby league stars. He also hinted that his client Tom Wright is a player that could consider moving overseas in the months ahead.
The players in general are sick of hearing about it.
A lot of the boys are thinking, ‘if they want NRL players, we’ll have to look elsewhere’. It’s become a debacle. They’ve just lost lost Pete Samu to Bordeaux, who’s been in the rugby system for a long time...
We’re sitting here waiting to get a deal done (for Tom Wright) after the World Cup.
This is the current Wallaby full-back yet they’re talking about all the NRL players and million-dollar offers.
What about looking after your own? Loyalty works both ways. Look at the sacrifices the players have made in rugby.
They all took a 50 per cent pay cut during COVID and didn’t get it paid back as the League guys did.
These comments are unlikely to deter Eddie Jones from going down this avenue in the months ahead, although it will be interesting to see if they do end up losing some players currently in their squad as a result.
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