‘Outplayed everywhere’: Eddie Jones exposed by woeful Wallabies

The Wallabies have hit early trouble in their 2023 World Cup quest yet their coach says it won’t take much to get his side ‘back in the money’

Eddie Jones said he wanted a “robust performance” from his new-look Wallabies. He got an insipid debacle. He told media he had coached his men to play like “mongrel dogs”. He delivered a mob of mewling pussycats. He promised fans this week was the first step toward a “smash and grab” on rugby’s greatest prize. Instead, 62-days out from the World Cup, a season that promised so much has kicked off with disaster.

After all the hoopla about Jones returning as the saviour of Australian rugby, his Wallabies barely fired a shot in their 43-12 walloping by South Africa in Pretoria. Despite scoring the Test’s first try with fast hands to Marika Koroibete, they imploded to leak 43 unanswered points, falling to their heaviest defeat against South Africa in 15 years and getting the much-vaunted Eddie Era: Part 2 off to the worst possible start. That this defeat came against a second-string Springboks side, with the first XV dispatched to New Zealand to counter the All Blacks, only salted the wound.