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'I love him': Eddie Jones changes his tune on Alun Wyn Jones
By Liam Heagney
Eddie Jones has paid tribute to Alun Wyn Jones, the legendary Wales lock who captained the Barbarians to their 48-42 win in a 14-try thriller at Twickenham on Sunday. There had been an expectation that the 37-year-old would go on to feature for his country at the age of 38 when the Rugby World Cup starts in September.
However, he instead announced his Test rugby retirement earlier this month and has now played in his final international match in the Jones-coached Baa-Baas' victory over Steve Hansen’s World XV in front of 33,000 in London.
Following an excellent performance, Jones attempted to sign off with two late conversion attempts but he missed both. “Disgraceful,” quipped coach Jones. “But he has got plenty of plusses, so we will excuse him for that.”
The past week, though, enabled Jones, the coach, to gain a very different perspective with Jones, the warrior, finally on his side and not the opposition, as had been the case during the Australian’s seven years in charge of England.
“There is two things,” Jones pondered in the aftermath. “For very few players it ends like a fairytale. That is the reality, it ends probably on someone else’s terms, not on your own. I am not sure, I haven’t chatted to him about it [what happened with Wales].
“Secondly, he will be remembered as one of the great competitors. If you look at the Welsh side that he has led over the last period of time, they have competed hard in every game that he has played in. He has captained the Lions, they have competed hard.
“He is one of those players that you hated coaching against because you knew he was going to be at it, you knew he was going to be at the referee, and you knew he was going to do everything to get his team to be in the hunt. Having coached him today I have changed my attitude towards him, I love him!”
The Killik Cup match programme amusingly suggested lock Jones was a mere 23-year-old, listing his date of birth in the Barbarians' pen pictures section of the publication as June 11, 1999, when in reality it is September 19, 1985.
Players playing at the highest level in their late 30s is a trend that coach Jones predicted rugby will see more of in the future. “We are seeing players play more and more. The advent of sports science and better strength and conditioning means that players can play longer, that is the reality,” he reckoned.
“(Jimmy) Gopperth has played until 39 in the Premiership, (Johnny) Sexton is going to play in the World Cup at 37. If you would have said that 10 years ago people would have said, ‘You’re nuts’. And now we have got players playing in their late 30s, so we are going to see for the really good players long careers, and for the average players it is probably going to be the same.”
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Skelton may be brought back for the Wallabies so that would be the only reason that may hinder Wilson. Easily the form, most skilful and game IQ of any Oz 8. Valentini’s best and favourite position is 6, but lineouts may be an issue with Skelton, Valentini and Wilson. Will be interesting what Schmidt goes for but for me Wilson should be picked on form. Schmidt rewards work rate, skill and consistency. All that glitters every so often won’t be in contention. Greely is one of those players that has a knack of making the right decision. A coach is going to love him because he knows week in week out he’s going to get the job done. The second try Greely wasn’t the guy who made the initial break it was Flook, Greely was at the bottom of the ruck when Flook was off along the sideline. Greely got up and made the effort to catch up with play but also read the play nicely and hit the pass from Campbell at pace and then held the pass beautifully to Ryan.
Go to commentsSharks deserved to be far further back by the last quarter. Their tackling was awful, their set pieces were disappointing, their defensive organization was poor (especially on the Kok side of the D line), they kept making unnecessary errors, and they never looked like cracking the Clermont defense during those first 60m. Masuku kept them in touch, with some help from the Clermont generosity on penalty opportunities. Agree with the writer of this article. It was belligerence, and ability to raise their pressure game just enough, that turned the last quarter into a Bok-style shutout. Clermont have a reputation of not playing the full 80m, and there was a bit of that for sure. But, quite often when the intensity of a team drops off in the last quarter credit is due to the opponent for tiring them out. At 60m, with the Kok try, you thought that just maybe the game was on. At 70m, with the Mapimpi contribution, one felt that Clermont were fading, while facing a team that would maintain the pressure game through the final whistle. Good win in the end, but the Sharks are still playing way below their potential. And with their resources, and a coach that has had enough time to figure things out, they are running out of excuses.
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