{"id":167019,"date":"2025-11-07T01:10:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T01:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/167019\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T01:10:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T01:10:17","slug":"the-change-in-irish-rugby-has-been-extraordinary-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/167019\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The change in Irish rugby has been extraordinary\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former England boss, now Japan head coach Eddie Jones<\/a> landed in Dublin and as usual had something to say about meeting Ireland<\/a> on Saturday at the Aviva Stadium for a lunchtime kick-off.<\/p>\n

Jones is still helping his team assimilate their 61-7 defeat to South Africa last weekend at Wembley Stadium. But can they beat Ireland?<\/p>\n

\u201cOne hundred per cent,\u201d he quipped.<\/p>\n

Few expected a different answer. Jones had already made headlines before he and his team arrived at their hotel in Dublin.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Caelan Doris returns to lead much-changed Ireland team for visit of JapanOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Speaking to Brendan Fanning for his book \u2018Touching Distance \u2013 Irish Rugby\u2019s Battle with Great Expectations\u2019, Jones said Andy Farrell<\/a> would be sacked for the same reason he got the job. <\/p>\n

Borrowing from a book \u2018Quiet Leadership\u2019, written by Carlo Ancelotti, Jones told Fanning that whatever a coach is good at is what gets them the job, and is invariably the reason that gets them sacked.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I reckon it\u2019s so true mate,\u201d Jones told Fanning. \u201cJoe (Schmidt) brought detail, he brought precision, he brought a hard work-ethic with players working above and beyond what they would normally do. And like everything, it runs its race.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, and I know publicly his image has been tarnished, but you look at what he did for Ireland rugby and the state he left it in. Now, Andy comes in and he\u2019s a bit freer and he\u2019ll end up getting sacked for that mate. I\u2019m telling you. <\/p>\n

Speaking in November 2024, Jones continued: \u201cYou can maybe see signs of Ireland getting a bit loose now, looking from afar, that it\u2019s just a little bit too loose now the way they\u2019re playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"EddieEddie Jones and Andy Farrell ahead of a Six Nations game at Twickenham in 2021. Photograph: Warren Little\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

A little less strident this time around, Jones nonetheless expressed his opinion that Ireland will take some time to get over the retirements of some of significant characters, notably Johnny Sexton and Peter O\u2019Mahony.<\/p>\n

Pointing to the potential of Jack Crowley and Sam Prendergast at outhalf, he said the gap left by Sexton has not been filled, adding the current Irish squad misses the reliability of O\u2019Mahony.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever you\u2019ve had a good run with a number of generational players like Sexton and O\u2019Mahony … Sexton was one of the best players in the world for a long period of time,\u201d said Jones.<\/p>\n

\u201cO\u2019Mahony was probably one of the most reliable Test players. You lose a few of those players and there\u2019s always a little gap in the team because the younger guys come through, they\u2019re not quite there and they can never be like those generational players. And this is the little sticky period that Ireland\u2019s going through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loath to provoke the Irish players too much, and orchestrating a charm offensive with the media for being more pleasant to him now than when he coached England, the 65-year-old praised Farrell\u2019s manner, personality and character but asked what direction he will take Ireland in the post-O\u2019Mahony-and-Sexton years.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd now is the next turn,\u201d he said. \u201cNow comes the next test. How do you adjust the team again? Because you\u2019ve got a new team you got to create. He\u2019ll be going through that test again and it\u2019ll be a good test for him, but he\u2019ll handle it. As long as you people don\u2019t give him too much of a hard time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contrasting the Ireland of today with the Ireland of years ago, perhaps as far back as his first stint as an assistant coach with Japan in 1996, Jones believes Ireland must accept the changes which need to take place. He has faith that the transition will be strategically negotiated by Farrell and his backroom team.<\/p>\n

\"IrelandIreland head coach Andy Farrell. Photograph: Ben Brady\/Inpho <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re still top four in the world,\u201d said Jones. \u201cYou know, 20 years ago you came on the Europe tour, and Ireland was the easiest game of the tour. The change in Irish rugby has been extraordinary, I think, absolutely extraordinary. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo, you\u2019re going through this little difficult period now, which I think you\u2019ve just got to accept, and the young players will come through, but they need time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey all need time in the saddle mate. They can\u2019t just hop on the horse and be the most experienced jockey in the world. They need time, they need to learn. They need to experience a bit of pain, and obviously that\u2019s going on at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pointing to the heightened expectations that now surround Ireland, as demonstrated by the reaction following the defeat to the All Blacks, Jones said: \u201cNo one in Ireland wants Ireland to lose now, so the expectation is to win every game. When they lose a game, it\u2019s a calamity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been reading The Irish Times every morning. And, you know, it\u2019s a crisis in Irish rugby.\u201d<\/p>\n

Come Saturday, if Ireland are beaten by the 13th-ranked team in the world, calamity might accurately describe it.<\/p>\n

JAPAN:<\/b> Yoshitaka Yazaki; Kippei Ishida, Dylan Riley (vice-capt), Charlie Lawrence, Tomoki Osada; Seungsin Lee (vice-capt), Naoto Saito; Kenta Kobayashi, Kenji Sato, Shuhei Takeuchi; Epineri Uluiviti, Warner Dearns (capt); Ben Gunter, Kanji Shimokawa, Faulua Makisi<\/p>\n

Replacements: <\/b>Shodai Hirao, Ryosuke Iwaihara, Keijiro Tamefusa, Jack Cornelsen, Michael Leitch, Shinobu Fujiwara, Shinya Komura, Yuya Hirose<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former England boss, now Japan head coach Eddie Jones landed in Dublin and as usual had something to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[75579,96012,18,19,17,34132,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-167019","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-autumn-nations-series","9":"tag-eddie-jones","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-ireland-rugby","14":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115505753491249463","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}