Eddie Jones opens up on ‘terrible phone calls’ with dropped Wallabies

When the Wallabies announced their 33-man squad for the upcoming Rugby World Cup on Thursday evening, it felt like the dawn of a new era in Australia.

Coach Eddie Jones left out a couple of legendary players from the 33-man squad, including former Australian captain Michael Hooper and playmaker Quade Cooper.

They weren’t the only big-name players to miss out, either.

Injured centre Len Ikitau has failed to recover from a devastating injury that he picked up during the match against Argentina in Sydney.

Loose forwards Jed Holloway and Pete Samu are also stunning omissions from the squad. Holloway started two Tests under Jones, including the Bledisloe Cup clash with the All Blacks at the MCG.

There are plenty of parallels that can be drawn between squad selections and Test matches themselves. There are those who celebrate success as the verdict or result is rendered into history, while others fall short of glory.

About 30 minutes after the squad was revealed, coach Eddie Jones spoke with reporters – and answered a series of questions for almost 20 minutes.

Amongst all the chaos and the frenzy of questions, Jones reflected on the “terrible phone calls” that he had to make to the likes of Michael Hooper and Quade Cooper.

“They’re terrible phone calls, mate,” Jones told reporters. “You never like to tell a player he’s not in the squad.

“You just sent me back about four weeks ago, I went up and watched a game in Coffs Harbour and caught up with my old schoolboy coach Geoff Mould.

“We went over and sat by the scrum machine. He’s close to 90 now and he said, ‘I want you to tell me the truth now.’ He said, ‘Did you blame me for being left out of the Australian Schoolboys?’

“He’s still feeling that hurt of leaving me out in 1977.

“These conversations, don’t get me wrong they’re more painful for the player, but for a coach, they’re not the discussions you like to have.”

Hours before the squad was revealed, reports and rumours started to spread about the makeup of the Wallabies’ Rugby World Cup squad.

It was widely reported that Hooper was set to miss out, which of course proved true – and the same could be said for Cooper. But there was only a whisper about another genuinely world-class talent.

Sydney Morning Herald reporter Tom Decent Tweeted about the absence of centre Len Ikitau from the squad. At the start of The Rugby Championship, this would’ve been deemed nigh on impossible.

But a cruel injury blow has ruled the midfielder out of contention – for now, at least. Coach Jones suggested that Ikitau could still feature in the World Cup.

“He was close mate,” Jones added. “We had to draw a line as to who we take that is borderline fitness.

“It just comes down to a judgement of what we think we can carry and what we can’t carry.

“We’ve decided that we won’t take Lenny, he hasn’t had a lot of rugby, obviously, for the last six or seven weeks.

“But there’s no reason once he gets fit he couldn’t feature in the World Cup. We just saw in The Rugby Championship, I think from the original squad we had we lost at least seven of those players.

“The World Cup, which is obviously more games, there’s reason to think the players that are out of the squad, that are not currently at their best, may feature later in the tournament.”

The Wallabies are just 80 minutes of rugby away from their World Cup opener against Georgia.

Australia are 0-4 under coach Jones, and take on World Cup hosts and favourites France in Paris at the end of the month. It doesn’t get much tougher than that.