Eddie Jones after England's loss in the 2019 Rugby World Cup final in Yokohama. He went from seeing himself as a teacher who coached rugby to a rugby coach who could always fall back to teaching if it didn’t work out. But though the peripatetic life of a pro rugby coach took Jones all around the world, Japan always had some measure of elastic attached to him. Photograph: Charlie Crowhurst/Getty Images“I couldn’t accept that they had no leadership skills,” he said in Mike Colman’s excellent biography Eddie Jones: Rugby Maverick. His Japan team are massive outsiders this weekend but he has never minded that in the past and isn’t likely to start now.

Source: The Irish Times November 07, 2025 16:32 UTC