Scott Robertson explains recent Sydney meeting with Eddie Jones

Crusaders boss Scott Robertson has shed light on his rendezvous with England boss Eddie Jones in Sydney in the lead-up to the recent third-Test series decider. The serial Super Rugby winner has grand ambitions to break into Test-level coaching and having interviewed with New Zealand Rugby to succeed Steve Hansen after the 2019 World Cup, he has recently been touted for roles with the All Blacks and with England.

Nothing has come of that speculation yet. For instance, it was Jason Ryan, Robertson’s Crusaders assistant, who was drafted in by the All Blacks over the last weekend while the RFU insisted last week their preferred candidate to succeed Jones, who is leaving after the 2023 World Cup, has still to be identified. 

The situation leaves the ambitious Roberston biding his time to see what might unfold. He is contracted with the title-defending Crusaders for 2023 but he has now told The Big Jim Show, a podcast hosted by ex-Scotland international Jim Hamilton, that international rugby is where he believes his long-term future lies.     

Asked to explain his meeting in Australia with England boss Jones, Robertson said: “Look, I caught up with Eddie but it wasn’t anything to do with the job, it was more, well he texted me. We have a good relationship and he is always watching rugby and stuff, so I just caught up with him briefly and had a chat.

“My best mate lives over there and I went to the game with him, took the wife over, and it was just a great experience, it was good to get away to Sydney for the weekend. Look, what I learned from last time, especially around the All Blacks stuff, is you have to keep your options open. It’s a professional game and I’m probably a little more clearly focused. 

“It’s one job [All Blacks coach] and when someone doesn’t give it to you you have to think differently, what opportunities are out there? I’ll be coming into my seventh year as the Crusaders coach next year, I have loved it all, it has been incredible but no one last in a job forever so I am open. It’s probably the way I can answer it. 

“If New Zealand Rugby want me, great. If there is another club, country, probably country, I wouldn’t go to a club now. I really want to go to Rugby World Cup, I genuinely want to go to a couple. I’m 47, I’ll be 52 by the time the next Rugby World Cup comes around [Australia 2027 after France next year]. I want to get to two or three and test myself, push myself. I am open (to offers), yeah.” 

So ambitious is Roberston that his aim is not only to win one World Cup, he wants to win two - one with the All Blacks and another with an overseas country. “I want to win Rugby World Cup but I want to win it with two different countries. I haven’t said it publicly before but it would transcend,” he revealed.  

“It would be great to win a World Cup with your own country which I want to do, that is the foremost thing, but I would love to do it with another country. I’m not sure what order it is. I’m not sure how that plays out, those decisions are not mine. They are somebody else’s decisions but I would love to win two and have a different expectation, different culture. 

“You have got to adapt to the country that you are coaching and get the best out of them. It’s when someone goes, ‘How did he do that? That is pretty special. He won seven championships with his club and then gone away and done that’. People will go, ‘Okay, he has got the group, the players will play for him’.”