David Campese exclusive: Eddie Jones and Steve Borthwick are killing our sport

James While
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Former Wallabies winger David Campese with Australia coach Eddie Jones and England coach Steve Borthwick - Rugby World Cup

David Campese takes aim at Eddie Jones and Steve Borthwick ahead of the Rugby World Cup.

Wallabies legend David Campese has hit out at Australia head coach Eddie Jones and England boss Steve Borthwick for their micro-managing and stats-led coaching tactics ahead of the Rugby World Cup.

The Campese name is synonymous with the Rugby World Cup, starring in three tournaments for his country, lifting the William Webb Ellis Cup in 1991 with Australia.

The World Rugby Hall of Famer features as our second Expert Witness ahead of the global showpiece in France.

Campese criticised both Jones and Borthwick ahead of the tournament for their tactics and micro-managing.

Identity crisis

“The biggest problem Australia face at the moment is no one in our country really has a clue who the Wallabies are and who their players are,” he told Planet Rugby.

“Since Jones left England in tatters and re-joined the Aussies, it’s all been about him. The Jones Media Machine has been powering away in full throttle with no desire to reference, respect or promote the actual team itself, something I find quite remarkable and utterly concerning.

“For Eddie, it’s always been about self-promotion. I played with him at Randwick, and he’s never gotten over Phil Kearns, our second-choice hooker to Eddie, leapfrogging and getting the Wallaby shirt Jones so dearly desired.

“It has always been his way or the highway; it’s about him proving a small man is big enough to mix it with the behemoths of the Test game, and at times, that leads to self-promotion that characterises his press conferences and soundbites.

“Now, don’t get me wrong, he’ll argue that he wants to take pressure off the players and such like, but I don’t get why you’d do that when you need players to take responsibility and to become star athletes on the global sports-scape?”

Complete control

He added: “It’s all about suffocating control, whether that’s in the media or on the training paddock and that controlling mechanism, not only from Eddie but from others too, like Steve Borthwick, is killing our sport and, in particular, both the Wallabies and England.

“The game has become controlled by stats. Paralysis by analysis is a hackneyed term, but it’s deadly accurate. Both teams are playing rugby by numbers, a prescriptive pre-planned approach to a sport where the best players are defined by brilliant and intuitive decision-making. It’s bloody ridiculous.

“An elite Test player is making maybe 20 to 30 micro-decisions a minute. That’s something near 3,000 in a match, on the hoof, under pressure and in reaction to what’s unfolding in front of them.

“Why then, do coaches like Eddie and Borthwick spend their lives trying to micro-manage something they themselves are not in control of?

“Imagine you’re an opening batsman in cricket, and every time you play and miss or fail to middle one, your coach runs on with a spare pair of gloves and tells you how to play the next delivery? What would you say to him? I know what I’d say, and it would be short and sharp with a few four-letter words slung in for good measure.

“To extend that cricket analogy, great coaches coach skills, structure and situations. They don’t micro-manage the delivery of outcomes – they equip the players with the knowledge, skills and support structures they need, and they identify how to deal with scenarios, but they certainly don’t try and affect the execution themselves.”

Campese continued: “In rugby, the best coaches I’ve worked with do similar – leaving the players to decide how to deliver the outcomes with the tools they have in the situations they find themselves in.

“Sure, there’ll be times it doesn’t work, rather like the first time you take the stabilisers off your kid’s bike – you know they’ll fall, but you also are aware sooner or later they’ll work out for themselves how not to fall – due to the decisions they make through the right skills, knowledge and experience.”

Why would you do that?

“Eddie is scarred by the 2019 Final, and that’s always held him back a little in his thinking as he’s spent four years trying to win that game in his own mind,” the Wallabies great believes.

“In the World Cup in Japan, I was at the South Africa semi-final (against Wales). It was a pretty boring game, but South Africa won. It was about 6-3 or something at half-time, and I saw Eddie and John Mitchell walk in with these massive smiles on their face.

“They were taking the next game (the final) for granted. I said that they’ve lost the World Cup already because you two are watching the game thinking we’ve got them, and you haven’t yet. It was a telling moment.”

He continued: “I’m not saying Eddie is a bad coach; far from it, but the truth is the legend is bigger than the results. He’s won nothing as a Test head coach, yet he still acts like he’s Sir Alex Ferguson. Sure, if a team needs restructuring and a turnaround of poor cultures and customs, he’s in his element, but there’s a glass ceiling above him, and it’s his own bullishness that stops other leaders from growing and working alongside him, also the reason why he tends to go through a host of assistant coaches.

“But, paradoxically, why both Australia and England kicked out their head coaches before a Rugby World Cup is quite beyond me. What can a newbie do in six months? Very little, especially if, in the case of Steve Borthwick, you’re inheriting the mess that Jones habitually leaves trailing in his wake.

Entertain the masses

“Both us and the Poms are struggling for identity and scratching around to find a game plan. Part of that is creating likeability, and by that, I mean getting the fans onside.

“Stop this micro analysed kick kick chase chase rubbish; the sport is supposed to be entertainment, and right now, both sides are delivering cheesy soap opera stuff whilst the likes of France, New Zealand, and others are offering their fans symphonies of rugby – and in doing so they’re making their teams both likeable and engaged with their supporters.

“As nations, we may love to hate each others’ guts on the sports paddock. If I am playing tiddlywinks against a Pom, I’ll fight to the death. But uniquely, we as countries are siblings from the same mother, and if you guys were in the crap in bigger terms, we Aussies would be there for you and vice versa.

“In rugby terms, we’re both in that situation right now, and I hope my words have given your readers some of the context of what both of our countries need to do in the context of rugby.”

READ MORE: England v Argentina preview: Los Pumas to inflict more pain on the Red Rose in vital Pool D clash

Australia David Campese Eddie Jones Steve Borthwick

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