Eddie Jones to coach Japan in bid to restore his reputation: Good luck with that

Tarnished beyond recognition, Eddie Jones’s reputation as a rugby coaching guru can now perhaps only be resurrected in the country where they still remember him as a miracle worker.

After being fired from his position as England coach and embarking on a disastrous soap drama that saw him mocked from Tasmania to Twickenham, the 63-year-old needs to show in Japan that he still has something to give the international game.

It will be difficult for Jones to win back the trust of the rugby community, though, when he was formally named the Brave Blossoms’ coach for the second time on Wednesday.

Jones was widely believed to have abandoned the Wallabies while persistently denying any connection to the Japan position.

Inevitably, news of his appointment 45 days after quitting as Australia’s coach was met with a torrent of outrage, indignation and condemnation on social media

Former England player Andy Goode led the charge on X, tweeting: “Absolutely never spoken to them maaaate! Nek minnit Eddie Jones gets the Japan job! A man you can never trust!!”

Jones’s performances with both Australia and England since 2019 have raised concerns about whether he has permanently lost his sure touch, especially in light of the Wallabies’ unprecedented failure to advance to the quarterfinals in France and his dismissal by the RFU in December of last year.

However, Japan, where Jones has family ties and is highly respected, is the only place on Planet Rugby where he won’t face the theatrical jeers heard throughout the World Cup, including during his most recent coaching position with the Barbarians in Cardiff last month.

Jones, who’ll begin his job on January 1

Jones, who’ll begin his job on January 1 and whose first match is set to be against his former charges England in Tokyo in June, has remained close friends with Japanese RFU president Masato Tsuchida throughout his recent travails.

And just as Rugby Australia was happy to sign him up amid his later troubles with England, he and Tsuchida have remained staunch allies ever since Jones’s first spell in the job between 2012 and 2015, which culminated with ‘the miracle of Brighton’ as the Blossoms beat South Africa at the World Cup.

It still resonates as one of the great sporting shocks of all-time, with Tsuchida even noting Jones’s major influence on the development of Japanese rugby when he came on board as JRFU boss last June.

Jones was no shoo-in for the Japan role, but even though South African Frans Ludeke had his backers after leading Kubota Spears to the national club title, the Australian’s standing as the man who led England to the final of the 2019 World Cup in Yokohama remained impeccable.

And there’s a theory that, despite the turmoil that’s engulfed him this past year, his return to Japan could prove a nice fit, with Jones expected to be given the opportunity by Tsuchida to enjoy the sort of control over centralised development of the game there in a way he felt he never did in Australia.

And after the heady excitement of the 2019 World Cup on home soil, where the Brave Blossoms reached the quarter-finals, 2023 was a big let-down with their elimination in the group stages.

So the national team needs a reset – and it really does also look as if Jones’s rock-bottom stock can only head in one direction.

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