Opinion: The toughest week of the World Cup for Eddie Jones’ charges

In a Rugby World Cup full of tough weeks for Australia’s Wallabies, this one is surely the toughest.

A squad that has been battered, physically and mentally, has to find a way to stay positive and train with purpose for a quarter-final match they know, almost certainly, they won’t get to play.

Commitment to the jersey and coach

Four of Eddie Jones‘ first-choice players at the start of the tournament, captain Will Skelton, Taniela Tupou, Nick Frost and Carter Gordon, are now invalided out of the tournament. Concerningly, but perhaps not surprising because this is the way the Wallabies roll, only one of those players, Frost, sustained his injury in a match.

For the able-bodied remainder, what does a player do this week when his coach looks him in the eye and demands nothing but the fullest commitment to training?

The answer is, of course, to provide that commitment because that’s what professional players representing their country at a World Cup do.

Even so, there wouldn’t be a single player lacing up a boot this week who isn’t carrying around regrets, doubts and nagging questions about the whole campaign.

At scheduled press conferences over the last three and a half weeks, a stream of players have all said the right things. They are disappointed with the outcome but fully supportive of the coach and the direction the team is headed in.

If only the Wallabies’ match-day performances were so consistent and full of clarity.

But that united front face only goes so far. The players might know which side their bread is buttered, but they are also not deaf and blind. Family, friends, and social media… all carry the same message around the coaching circus and the dwindling stocks of rugby in Australia.

Despite appalling timing in going public ahead of the pool match against Wales, Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan at least got one thing partly right. The failure of this World Cup campaign is the product of years of mismanagement. Players in this squad should not be immune from accepting responsibility for their performances, but they must know – and believe – that they are not personally responsible for Australian rugby’s pain and suffering.

Sunday’s 34-14 win against Portugal was no more or no less than what this side might have been expected to deliver. A wholehearted effort, a handful of nice tries, skill breakdowns, a disjointed backline defence and two players in the sin bin at the same time.

It’s expected because that’s as it has been for the Wallabies all season. And with such a short runway, with a motley collection of coaches, some of whom were still coming on board in the shadows of the tournament, there was never a real prospect of meaningful, positive change being made on the run.

Shining lights

The better players too, were as expected. Angus Bell may now be the Wallabies’ most important player, not just because of what his scrummaging, ball carrying, and presence provides today, but because he is the rock – and hope – upon which Australia’s renaissance can be built.

In the backline, Mark Nawaqanitawase and Andrew Kellaway look and play like proper Test players; competent in their core skills and threatening when provided with opportunities, albeit with too few of them.

Dotted around are too many players just short of Test level and a few more who are a long way off; beneficiaries of Jones’ selection throw at the stumps, or focus on 2027, whichever you choose to believe.

Amongst the deluge of criticism from media, ex-players and fans, much has been made of the fear that this experience will scar Australia’s young players to the point where their careers will be ruined permanently.

That’s not a theory I subscribe to. The Wallabies’ World Cup has been so surreal at times, so ‘high farce’, so far from the norm, that no player should be judged or judge themselves on this alone.

The best thing that can happen is for the developing players to get out of this bubble to enjoy a break away from rugby before re-joining their franchises; familiar territory, familiar coaching voices, and familiar jokes with close teammates.

Yes, they will need to work hard and get better for their own sakes and because they are, for the most part, the best players Australia has at its disposal, for the sake of Australian rugby.

Come late January, with a new Super Rugby season on their doorstep, look for players like Frost, Gordon, Nawaqanitawase, Rob Valetini, Matt Faessler, Blake Schoupp, Rob Leota, Izaia Perese and others to be ready to take steps forward as leading voices within their team environments, not to be cowering in dark corners or dispatched to the scrapheap.

The rebuild

By then, the off-field politics should have sorted itself out, with the Rugby Australia board and its state bodies to determine if McLennan is the problem or the solution.

Then, and only then, can the rebuild begin in whatever form it takes.

While the media focus is understandably about Jones’ future, he is not the real story. The critical juncture, the moment of accountability, came when Dave Rennie’s campaign was sawn off and Jones was appointed.

There is zero chance of Jones being sacked on this World Cup performance; if he were to do so, McLennan would be signing his own death warrant.

If things advance for Jones in Japan, then that might provide an out for the chairman, a resignation by Jones or a sacking on the grounds of disloyalty or similar. An event that could not have been reasonably foreseen when Jones was appointed.

The other possible out is for Portugal to do the unthinkable and beat Fiji on Sunday, denying the Fijians a bonus point in the process.

If that were to happen – and despite Portugal’s undeniable improvement, nobody is saying it will – it would be a pyrrhic victory for Australia.

What cost is a quarter-final appearance if it means prolonging the agony of this World Cup?

READ MORE: Loose Pass: Thrills, spills and pool length criticism; the half-way report of the Rugby World Cup