RFU targeting an English replacement for Eddie Jones
Rugby Football Union chief executive Bill Sweeney has revealed that an English candidate would be the overwhelming preference to replace Eddie Jones when his contract expires after the 2023 World Cup.
Twickenham has put together a “war room” where succession planning is under way with the objective of appointing the new management team next summer, ensuring they are in place in time for the 2024 Six Nations.
Expanding the number of possible English candidates – who would include Steve Borthwick, Rob Baxter and Richard Cockerill – is that there is no pre-requisite for the new head coach to have international experience.
Sweeney has declined to provide any names for legal reasons but the recruitment process is being conducted with the knowledge of Gallagher Premiership clubs.
“We believe we’ve got such a wealth of English coaches in the game. As a leading rugby nation we should be developing English coaches and an English style of play,” Sweeney said.
“That should be long-term and therefore the preference would be to have an English set-up, as far as I’m concerned.
“There’s a very definite plan. We’ve got a war room that’s got every English coach you can imagine – based here and based internationally.
“It’s got contracts and all sorts of things. We’ve got an advanced succession plan in place.”
Jones will enter next year’s World Cup in France with the understanding that there will be no possibility of extending his reign into a ninth year and beyond.
“Eddie is fully aware and knows what we want to do,” RFU director of performance rugby Conor O’Shea said.
“There will be some people who say that will disturb the World Cup prep because people will be looking over their shoulder, but Fabien Galthie was appointed France coach before the 2019 World Cup.
“It’s the right thing to do because we need to get ready for the 2024 Six Nations and the plan for us will be to appoint that coach before summer 2023.
“Whether that’s embedding them into the programme or taking a helicopter view, that’s a discussion to be had.
“We have so many top English coaches who are in a great position. You look across the Premiership and then you see the quality of people overseas. I want them to be English and I believe they should be.”
Sweeney added that the RFU has drawn up a contingency plan in the event of Jones departing between now and the World Cup, although the Australian continues to retain its full support.
“To think we wouldn’t have a plan B would be a little bit crazy,” said Sweeney, who added that the cost of parting company with Jones and appointing new coaches would not deter the RFU from sacking him if that was the correct decision.
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I like Andy’s critical approach to all hot issues especially when it comes to the rugby big “bosses”. However, sorry Andy, I don’t support your “we shouldn’t be questioning the integrity of Karl Dickson or any other official”. May I ask why? They do have a lot of responsibility, but they are people like us with all their sins and weaknesses. We have to respect their decision during the games, but why they became untouchable afterwards and people cannot even criticize them and the ones, who does express their concerns, got punished for publicly analyzing their mistakes and asking questions. If they believe they did right, there shouldn’t be a problem for any of the refs to answer these “questions” publicly. I don’t really remember such cases. However, I do remember how Craig Joubert shown his running skills in 2015 or Pascal Gauzere shined in Cardiff in 2021. I do believe that Rassie, as anybody else, had a full right to share his vision of Nic Berry’s performance the same year. I do not support the hate in any form especially in public one, but creating the cast of untouchable refs and rugby bosses is not for me. As for Karl, he had all means to question his appointment for the game and since I don’t now whether he did it, blaming just RFU wouldn’t be quite correct at this moment. I love the game of rugby and almost every time I watch it I don’t support any team, I just wanna see the good game and fair referring. Sorry, Karl. last Saturday you got my Craig Joubert”s award of the round. It is up to Karl to prove that I am wrong, not to Andy or RFU’s corporate bla-bla-bla. Something like that…
Go to commentswell remember the blues had a guy called jed rowlands for a season. remember scott took his coaching team with him give him time
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