Eddie Jones slams ‘absolutely rubbish’ Scott Robertson criticism after record All Blacks defeat
All Blacks head coach Scott Robertson and former Wallabies boss Eddie Jones.
Eddie Jones has urged people to get off Scott Robertson’s back, hitting out at the chatter which is currently surrounding the All Blacks head coach.
The New Zealand boss currently finds himself under pressure following their record 43-10 defeat to the Springboks in Wellington last weekend.
There was much excitement among supporters when Robertson took over from Ian Foster following the Rugby World Cup, but he has overseen some disappointing results.
Foster was heavily criticised during his tenure as the All Blacks made unwanted history on several occasions, which almost led to his sacking.
The theme under Foster and Robertson
However, that theme has continued under his successor with the former Crusaders boss watching on as they succumbed to Los Pumas for the first time in Argentina and then recorded their biggest-ever loss when they went down to South Africa.
But Jones refuses to blame Robertson, insisting that the All Blacks are simply not as good as the Boks at the moment, and haven’t been since 2019.
“If you look at the history of the games between South Africa and New Zealand, since 2019 South Africa have won approximately 70 per cent, New Zealand have 30 per cent of the Tests, so this is not a Scott Robertson thing. That’s the first thing,” the former England and Wallabies head coach said on the Rugby United podcast.
“All this, ‘he’s not the right coach, he’s not doing the right job’ is just rubbish, absolute rubbish. He’s a good coach and I’m sure he’ll find the right way. At the moment, South Africa’s stronger than New Zealand.
“The other thing you look at in the Rugby Championship, I think every team’s gone win, loss, win, loss. Basically, they’re two-Test series they’ve shared.
“There’s no one at the moment who’s absolutely outstanding, they all seem to be in some sort of transitional mode and probably Argentina’s the most settled team of all of them.
“New Zealand are definitely going through a transitional period and for New Zealand they can’t stomach a transitional period because they expect to win all the time. But they are.”
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Eddie on Rassie
The talk around Robertson comes just a few days after Rassie Erasmus, a double Rugby World Cup winner no less, came in for some criticism following the Eden Park Test.
Erasmus responded to that loss by making significant changes to the backline, another decision which was questioned by observers, but it turned out to be the correct call.
“A week ago, Rassie was the worst coach in the world, now he’s the best coach in the world, so all this is rubbish, mate,” Jones said.
“As a coach, that’s how you treat it – as rubbish. You work out what you’ve got to do for your team to go forward.
“The thing that gets affected is the players’ confidence because they read the social media. When they’re saying nice things about them, they like to read it and they like all that sort of stuff when it’s good, but when it’s not good, it does affect them.
“You’ve just got to find ways of keeping their confidence up and make them keep believing.
“It’s like that old Ted Lasso, mate, the Apple one – it’s not far from the truth. You’ve got to get them to believe.”
