Eddie Jones reveals how player power ‘manifests’ and hits out at ‘weak as water’ New Zealand Rugby for Scott Robertson’s sacking
Eddie Jones on the All Blacks and Scott Robertson's exit.
Eddie Jones has slammed New Zealand Rugby for how they handled Scott Robertson’s dismissal, with the power of the All Blacks’ players reportedly having a major role.
NZ Rugby chair David Kirk stated that around 20 players were interviewed during the review of the 2025 international season, with reports suggesting that Ardie Savea led a revolt of sorts.
Kirk refuted those claims, while several players have come out to bat for the star loose forward too.
Jones believes that the players did play a role in Robertson’s dismissal but has hit out at the union for not allowing the head coach to steady the ship and taking the criticism at face value.
All Blacks’ player power
The Japan boss has experience with the negative impact player power can have on a squad and detailed how it manifests itself in at the highest level.
“It manifests itself through lack of effort,” Jones explained on the DSPN podcast with Martin Devlin.
“When you see a lack of effort on the field. The emotional part of rugby, and it’s always been there, we used to talk about does the team spirit feel right? Now it’s is the team connected? It’s the same meaning but when your team’s not quite right when you haven’t got the right mix of leaders, when you haven’t got the right mix of workers, and then you got young guys coming through and there’s maybe some misalignment in the coaching staff, that’s when you see a team that’s a little bit up and down in effort.
“You can see that on the field and that can be sometimes clear and sometimes it just takes a little bit of time to eat away and it takes a bad loss for it to come out.”
Jones experienced it first hand when he took charge of England following their disappointing 2015 Rugby World Cup campaign, when the hosts failed to progress past the pool stages of the tournament.
Eddie Jones ‘disappointed’ by how NZ Rugby ‘handled’ Scott Robertson’s sacking and ‘leaking’ details
Weak as water
He says that the squad was fractured when he assumed control and wonders if he ever really got it right.
“I can remember being with England and they went through that terrible World Cup in 2015. There was fractions and there was problems everywhere,” he said.
“There were six or seven players every afternoon to go and have a cup of tea and talk about the problems, whinge about everyone else and there was all those things going on.
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“So, when I got to England, we tried to sort that out, but I always think back because it hurts me a lot, the 2019 World Cup final, maybe I didn’t get that fixed as well as I should have because maybe some of those things came out a little bit.
“So, player power is nothing new; it’s always been there. The thing I don’t like about it now is when they leak the results through a survey, and the boards do that.
“I think it’s as weak as water, mate, when they do that.
“You can get the survey from the players and it’s good information and depending on the quality of the survey and whether it’s anonymous or whether they put names to them, whether they do interviews there’s a whole range of processes you can do, that’s great information, but then use that information to have a discussion with a coach don’t take it on face value.”
