Eddie Jones reveals what convinced him to sign new England contract to 2023 Rugby World Cup
Eddie Jones’s plan to retire to the beaches of the West Indies while filling his days with cricket have been shelved after he admitted he has unfinished business with England Rugby in their efforts to win the Rugby World Cup.
The 60-year-old has penned a two-year extension to take him through to the end of the 2023 Rugby World Cup, ensuring he will become the longest-serving England head coach in history, and comes after he agreed last week to take a 25 per cent pay cut on his £750,000-a-year salary in line with the Rugby Football Union’s stance to cope during the coronavirus crisis.
Jones steered England to the World Cup final last autumn in Japan, only to suffer an agonising defeat against South Africa to finish as runners-up, but after using the recent Six Nations Championship to prove to himself whether he is still the right man to remain in charge at Twickenham, Jones revealed that he is intent on making up for that disappointment in Yokohama.
“Having done the four years I felt the project hasn’t been finished yet,” Jones said on a videoconference on Thursday. “I think there’s still a lot of growth in the team and the last Six Nations I wanted to make sure I could still have an effect on the team and still improve the team. And I think I can do that.
“Therefore it is a good fit for me to continue. We have got a lot of growth left, it is still a relatively young side and I think I can still add to the growth of the team.
“At the end of a World Cup you have to make an assessment as to whether you can continue to develop the team and whether as a coach you can be effective. Therefore the Six Nations for me was quite important. I wanted to make sure if I was going to continue I could have an effect on the team and I believe I can. That is the reason I have decided to continue and accept the kind offer from the RFU.”
England remain in with a chance of winning the Six Nations should the championship be concluded, with Jones’s side battling France and Ireland for top spot with all teams having games remaining to be played.
But his target goes much further than being crowned the best team in Europe, with the former Australia and Japan coach determined to make this current England side the greatest team the game has seen.
“That’s what we want to achieve,” Jones added. “It is an aspirational goal because you only play one game and you can be the greatest team but we want to aspire to be a team that everyone remembers. We have played some good rugby over the last four years and we can play even better rugby in the next three years and that’s the challenge ahead.”
But Jones did move to keep the announcement in perspective, given it comes at a time of global crisis. The RFU are just one of a huge number of businesses having to manage the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, with more than 40,000 now dead across the world due to the outbreak of Covid-19. Having travelled back to Japan with his wife, Jones is maintaining his work for the RFU via video conference calls until he is able to return to England, and he wanted to keep the news of his new deal - which will not include any bonuses at the end of this season - in check given the serious nature of the problems facing many at this time.
“It comes back to the fact that it’s just about controlling what you can control,” he said. “Our problems are quite insignificant compared with the problems around the world. We have got to keep everything in perspective.”
“When we get the opportunity to play we want to play with passion, we want to play with pride, and we want to give people something to enjoy that’s got to be our target and in the meantime we have just got to play our roles in being good citizens and help support as much as we can."
