Eddie Jones named England coach: Coaching job leaves mastermind facing the biggest challenge of his career

Lack of talent and high expectations could hamper ex-Wallaby coach’s hopes of success with red-rose

Eddie Jones during this autumn’s World Cup, at which he coached the outsiders Japan to exceed all expectations (Getty)

Eddie Jones knows what it is to walk on water as a Test coach – and he knows what it is to hit the seabed with a resounding thud. Maybe this is what the Rugby Football Union chief executive, Ian Ritchie, meant when he inserted the phrase “proven international experience” into the red-rose job description: the “proof” of the matter being that no one gets it all his own way all of the time, as Jones didn’t when he presided over eight Wallaby defeats in nine matches back in 2005.

Guiding an immature Australian side to the 2003 World Cup final was one of the Tasmanian’s more striking triumphs, not least because his players saw off the All Blacks en route with one of the most tactically astute performances in living memory. Helping to shape the Springboks’ successful challenge for global supremacy four years later was every bit as impressive while his handling of Japan’s campaign in the tournament just past had more than a touch of genius about it. Rank outsiders do not win three games out of four by chance.

But this next task is of a different magnitude altogether – one that will ask as much of Jones the politician and the diplomat (not, perhaps, his very strongest suit) as it will of Jones the strategist. Whatever vast sum the RFU has coughed up in luring him away from Cape Town, he will earn every penny of it. Why? Because his new set of challenges, which fall into four broad categories, might have left Hercules himself feeling just a little put upon.

Sorting the structure

Jones is already on record as rubbishing the current set-up in England, under which the leading players are contracted to, and effectively owned by, the Premiership clubs rather than by the governing body. “How can you manage your players when they are controlled by other organisations?” he asked just recently, in full rhetorical flow. “Wales, Ireland and Scotland – unlike England, France and Italy – all have centralised contracting systems, with the unions controlling the players. As a consequence, they produced competitive teams and vibrant performances at the recent World Cup.”

If Jones finds a way of changing this before the next World Cup, he will prove himself the greatest squarer of committee-room circles since Lyndon B Johnson. The RFU and the top-flight clubs are negotiating a new deal designed to keep both sides happy – or at least, keep them from each other’s throats – and nobody seriously expects it to differ greatly from the existing agreement.

This means the clubs will continue to own their assets, release them for England training only under the strict terms of the settlement and select teams in the way they see fit, as opposed to the way Jones sees it.

From the Test coaching perspective, life is a lot easier in New Zealand. If the All Black boss Steve Hansen wants a player to move from the Auckland Blues to the Otago Highlanders for positional reasons, that’s what happens. If Jones asked Henry Slade to leave Exeter for Newcastle so he can play at No 12 rather than No 13, he will be told his fortune in no uncertain terms.

Harmonising the style

Down there in the Antipodes, the big Super Rugby teams play in much the same way. They are not identical – the Christchurch-based Crusaders tend to have a little more going for them up front than the Wellington-based Hurricanes; the Brumbies from Canberra are not easily confused with the Rebels from Melbourne – but they generally read from a single book, if not a single page.

The Premiership? That’s as different as different can be. For every English team seeking to play an all-court game at high tempo, like Bath and Wasps, there are sides who rarely attack from their own half of the field, like Sale and Saracens. This raises the obvious problem of habit.

As Stuart Lancaster found during a four-year England tenure based at least in part on establishing good relations with the club rugby directors, there was precious little linking the rugby at international level to that at league level. Too many people spent too much time agreeing to disagree.

Improving the skills

The odd nugget of value has emerged from the vast tonnage of nonsense spouted since the end of the red-rose World Cup campaign, and a certain Graham Henry was responsible for unearthing one of them. The man who led New Zealand to the title in 2011 identified one major problem with the England team, and it had nothing to do with Lancaster’s coaching. “The players weren’t good enough,” he said, with meaning.

Aye, there’s the rub. Back in 2003, when things were so very different, Jason Robinson, Will Greenwood, Jonny Wilkinson, Phil Vickery, Martin Johnson and the whole of the back-row unit might have found their way into a World XV to play Neptune.

Spool forward a dozen years, and eight becomes zero. Of Lancaster’s first-choicers, it is just about possible to see the wing Anthony Watson, the outside-half George Ford and the lock Joe Launchbury developing into state-of-the-art performers over the next four years. And that’s it. Perhaps the biggest task facing Jones is a talent identification one.

Managing the expectation

Lancaster had many problems, but this was not one of them: initially drafted in as interim head coach, his early games were as pressure-free as it gets. Jones is coming at this from the opposite direction; indeed, he has been appointed as a quick-fix merchant who must also deliver over the long haul – one hell of a trick to pull off.

The much-criticised RFU hierarchy will no doubt present him as “the best in the business”, punch the air in jubilation at “getting their man”... and, in so doing, crank up the heat before he has had a chance to make himself a cup of tea.

If a Calcutta Cup trip to Edinburgh in early February is no Englishman’s idea of fun, there is one Australian out there who may just be about to find out why.