England coach’s pre-match charm offensive towards referee Ben O’Keeffe looks a canny move after five tight decisions against Australia favour his side
An hour after the match, Eddie Jones snapped. Four questions into his press conference, Jones was asked how he felt about the marginal calls made by the referee, Ben O’Keeffe, and whether he felt England had been lucky to get the better of them. It was a fair question, but it set off Jones’s hair-trigger temper. “Why do we have a referee? Why do we have TMOs? I don’t understand the question,” Jones said. “How were we lucky? Ten replays of the video and they make a decision. This is the best referee in the world for today, they have the best guys doing the TMO, and you’re saying we’re lucky because the decisions went our way. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I’m sorry we’re lucky.”
Jones’s acidic answer curdled the mood of the room. He is, they say, a hard man to work with, as prickly as a cactus, and he has a habit of picking on journalists in public. Since England are winning, he could rightly argue that it doesn’t matter a damn, and so long as they carry on that way it won’t cost him anything but amity. If he ever finds himself in need of a little goodwill, however, he may regret the way he is squandering some of it now. As the saying goes, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Which Jones knows – just look at the way he buttered up O’Keeffe before and after Saturday’s match.
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