If they ever met for that beer afterwards, Michael Cheika no doubt told his old mate to enjoy this while it lasts. Not that his friendship with Eddie Jones, which stretches way back to their playing days at Randwick, has looked particularly solid this year. It looked strained during the summer, but seemed to fall apart altogether in the buildup to this, the fourth instalment of the Eddie and Mikey show. Let’s hope they did meet for that beer. Rugby’s too trivial a thing to fall out over.
Still, that the scoreline reads 4-0 to Eddie will hurt. Jones has managed to transform an England side that Cheika had plunged into the depths of despair little more than a year ago, having just performed a miracle job himself on a Wallaby outfit in chaos. Cheika must have wondered on more than a few occasions this year what happened to the powers of regeneration that brought him the World Rugby coach-of-the-year gong in 2015.
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