Eddie Jones: Rassie, red wine and Oasis
Eddie Jones and Rassie Erasmus, two of the game’s most mercurial coaches, will face off at London’s iconic Wembley Stadium on Saturday, November 1.
Erasmus’s Springboks will start the year-end tour with a historic Test against Jones’s Japan at a venue better known for soccer.
This will be only the fourth meeting between South Africa and Japan.
The two countries go head-to-head in London for the first time in a decade, following one of the greatest sporting upsets in history, when Jones and his no-name brand Japan beat the then two-time world champions South Africa, coached by Heyneke Meyer, in the Pool B match at the 2015 World Cup – the match dubbed the ‘Miracle of Brighton’.
The Springboks won the next two encounters (both in Japan in 2019), a World Cup warm-up (41-7 in Kumagaya City) and a quarterfinal fixture (26-3 in Tokyo).
* International Rugby Union returns to Wembley Stadium on 1 November as world champions South Africa take on Japan. To buy tickets, click here!
Jones called the November 1 face-off a ‘celebration game’, pointing to the ‘Miracle of Brighton’ at the 2015 World Cup, which saw Jones’ Brave Blossoms claim a 34-32 victory.
“It was historical, for Japan and South Africa,” he told @rugby365com, adding: “Japan went on to make the 2019 [World Cup] quarterfinals.”
Jones felt the 2015 victory saw them climb the world ladder and now has a place at the game’s top table.
“Before that, Japan was a bit of a sideshow,” said the coach, who often has a peculiar approach to the game.
“South Africa, since that [2015] World Cup, they won the next two.”
He said they won the last two World Cups by ‘being South Africa’.
“They played South African rugby and played it well.
“They are trying to develop their game and take it to another level.
“It is always interesting watching international teams. Every team has its own base phase for how it wants to play.
“However, everyone wants to be entertaining also. Those two [aspects] don’t always go together.
“When you win with your base-phase, like South Africa has done, with a hard, physical, tough game, the more you win, the more pressure there is to entertain.
“That doesn’t necessarily make you a stronger team.
“If you want to be entertained, go watch Oasis at Wembley.
“Rugby can sometimes not be an entertaining game, but an intoxicating game because of the contest.
“That is the bit I enjoy the most, getting that balancing act right for your team.”
Jones, turning to Erasmus, who like himself, is best known for his ‘creative’ approach to coaching.
“He has a love for the game,” Jones told @rugby365com, adding that there are stories about Erasmus bugging opposition dressing rooms and leaving dummy game plans around for opposition to ‘find’.
“They are all good stories, but you just don’t know how much of it is true.
“He is always looking for an edge.
“Every coach is always looking for the edge, how to do it a little bit better.
“[There are] dummy line-out mauls and taking more scrums.
“All those things are good for the game, because they make the game look at itself.”
(LISTEN as Japan coach and former Springbok assistant Eddie Jones talks to @king365ed about facing off against Rassie Erasmus and what makes the two of them such special characters…..)
Asked what they would share when they have their traditional get-together before the fixture in London, Jones had a very specific requisition.
“I am going to make sure I remind Rassie that he always brings a nice bottle of red wine for me. He has to bring that.”
With Japan being a ‘young developing team’, Jones said they will only get better by playing against the best.
“We will know where we stand by playing against the best,” he said of the world’s No.1 team.
“These experiences for any young player is the most valuable experiences of their lives – against the best team and physical in the world, at an iconic stadium.
“These are the games you remember for the rest of your life.”
Jones, who won the World Cup in 2007 as a technical advisor to the Springboks, reached two more World Cup finals – with Australia (2003) and England (2019).
@rugby365com
