VIDEO: Rassie finds Eddie's 'mind games' entertaining
NEWS: The ‘Eddie Jones’ mind games have already begun ahead of the opening Rugby Championship Test against the Springboks at Loftus Versfeld next weekend.
However, rather than being ill at ease with it, South Africa’s Director of Rugby Johan Erasmus thinks it is ‘entertaining’.
The pair knows each other well.
In 2007 Jones and Erasmus worked together for a few weeks as advisors to the Springbok team, before Erasmus took up the coaching position at the Stormers.
Jones continued to help guide the Boks to their second World Cup title
Erasmus doesn’t think Jones deliberately tries to rile the opposition.
It is rather a way to motivate his own team.
Besides the fact that Jones revealed this past weekend that he will use utility players, plans to play flank Josh Kemeny on the wing and move Dylan Pietsch, a wing, to the back row, he also contracted Brad Davis as attack coach.
A professional Rugby League player in the 1990s and 2000s, Davis played over 200 games in the English Super League before moving into coaching in 2006.
The rest of the coaching staff are also very qualified people – like current Brumbies assistant and Wallaby prop Dan Palmer as line-out coach and Neal Hatley, the forwards coordinator.
Frenchman Pierre-Henry Broncan was appointed as a maul consultant, Wallabies flyhalf Berrick Barnes is the kicking consultant and they also have speed consultant John Pryor.
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“The big trick [with Eddie] is that he is Australian,” Erasmus said, when asked about Jones’ well-document pre-match gabfests.
“He has coached in Japan, consulted there, and in the United States, took the England job and consulted with Rugby League teams.
“He is always a person that has broadened his coaching horizons.”
The South African boss said he always felt that a South African working with South Africans will get the best out of the players.
“And I always feel an Australian working with Australians, will get the best out of Australians – because he just knows how that nation works.
“I had a stint at Munster, Jacques and myself.
“It took us a few months before we actually understood how they think, how they operate, what is important, what is not important for them,” Erasmus explained.
He explained that Jones knows the Australian set-up and has been close to winning a World Cup with the Wallabies – losing 17-20 to England, through a late Jonny Wilkinson drop-goal.
Of course, he was also instrumental in the Boks’ success in 2007.
“Eddie always plays one or two mind games and he thinks out of the box,” Erasmus said.
“He is the kind of guy that has the guts to do stuff like that.
“I don’t say ‘mind games’ in a negative way.
“He is really good at doing it for his own team.
“I don’t think it is a bad thing. It is actually entertaining for [the] sport.”
Erasmus does not buy into the suggestion that he will play players out of position.
“That will just be one of Eddie’s challenges that we will have to face,” Erasmus added.
