Eddie Jones everywhere all at once: How Wallabies coach became a media master

Everywhere Eddie Jones goes, he is the centre of attention, the most popular man in the room. It’s like being John Eales – only shorter.

There has never been a Wallabies coach more media savvy than Jones. Since his return from England, he has made redundant Eddie McGuire’s “Eddie Everywhere” nickname. It is Jones who is omnipresent, his every appearance brilliantly orchestrated by his media advisor, David Pembroke.

He has a weekly podcast, entitled, naturally enough, Eddie. He has been interviewed by Gus Gould and the Offsiders, he has done more guest speaking gigs than Anthony Albanese and he has sprained his cheeks from smiling for selfies so often.

That’s why part of me is suspicious about the supposed “leak” of his Wallabies “Team of the Round”. If you buy into this, Jones was sitting in the AAMI Park stands on Sunday, idly jotting down his customary weekly XV in giant writing on an oversized notepad when a passing fan casually took a photo over his shoulder. That photo was posted on social media.

This is not Dave Rennie we’re talking about. Rennie, you may recall, wrote the words “Brutality, optimism and work ethic” on a whiteboard in Perth to give his players focus for the second half against England last July. Australia went on to win, but Rennie was furious with himself when a journalist snapped a photo of his message from the television screen and used it as the basis of his column. He evidently had no idea he needed to be cautious in his own dressing room. And yes, he might also have been angry at me, because I was the journalist in question.

Jones doesn’t make those mistakes. This is a man who survived for seven years in the searing spotlight of what used to be known as the Fleet Street media. He knew every wrong move, however innocent, could become a headline.

He would have brought that wariness home. If the Australian media can find out what was on the menu when he first met Rugby Australia boss Hamish McLennan last year – Portuguese chicken – it sure wasn’t going to pass up the chance to publish his private thoughts on team selection.

Where this theory goes off the rails is in ascribing a motive. What could Jones possibly achieve by deliberately staging the leak? The more believable explanation is the obvious one: Jones momentarily, and quite staggeringly, dropped his guard, and a fan with a phone caught him out.

Either way, there are intriguing elements to the leak. Jones evidently has been influenced by the work of his former prop Ben Darwin, who believes teams that play together regularly perform better than teams drawn from multiple sources. In his leaked side, Jones selected nine Brumbies and six Waratahs, including 18-year-old wunderkind Max Jorgensen. No one else.

The Queensland Reds missed out, despite the fact they were going about the business of demolishing the Western Force 71-20 right before his eyes. So, too, the Melbourne Rebels and the Force. OK, their players populated his B team – along with more Brumbies and more Waratahs – but the evident lesson is Jones wants to keep his selections tight, in line with the successful 1991 (NSW and Queensland) and 1999 (Queensland and Brumbies) models which won the World Cup.

And what better way of sending out a message, blame free, that those three franchises need to get the lead out.

Yet again Jones boosted crowd numbers. The Rebels, who will feel their narrow loss to the Hurricanes was more worthy than NSW’s untidy win against the Fijian Drua, will get their chance against the Tahs on Friday night. The following night it’s the big one: Brumbies v Reds in Canberra. A team versus B team. Nic White (and Ryan Lonergan, surely) against Tate McDermott; Noah Lolesio against Tom Lynagh; Rob Valetini against Harry Wilson; Len Ikitau against Josh Flook; Tom Wright against Jordan Petaia.

Speaking of the Valetini-Wilson duel – which has been made vastly more complicated by Langi Gleeson’s outstanding performance for the Tahs – Jones has shown welcome flexibility in choosing Valetini in the same position he occupied during the Brumbies’ epic 25-20 win over the Blues, blindside breakaway.

With rare exceptions, Rennie saw Valetini as a No.8 only, which effectively closed out also using Wilson. But Jones has opened the door to a Wilson-Michael Hooper-Valetini Test back row. He complicated matters further by pencilling in Reds co-captain Liam Wright as an option at six, with the Tahs’ Jed Holloway as a floater.

It’s about to get very interesting. But as the moment inevitably draws closer, when Jones will have to pick sides for real, his days of being as popular as Ealesy are coming to a close.

Watch all the action from the Super Rugby Pacific with every match streaming ad-free, live and on demand on Stan Sport kicking off Friday 17 February.

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