Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

RFU targeting an English replacement for Eddie Jones

By PA
(Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

Rugby Football Union chief executive Bill Sweeney has revealed that an English candidate would be the overwhelming preference to replace Eddie Jones when his contract expires after the 2023 World Cup.

ADVERTISEMENT

Twickenham has put together a “war room” where succession planning is under way with the objective of appointing the new management team next summer, ensuring they are in place in time for the 2024 Six Nations.

Expanding the number of possible English candidates – who would include Steve Borthwick, Rob Baxter and Richard Cockerill – is that there is no pre-requisite for the new head coach to have international experience.

Video Spacer

Ospreys coach Toby Booth reviews his team’s disappointing loss to the Lions at Ellis Park

Video Spacer

Ospreys coach Toby Booth reviews his team’s disappointing loss to the Lions at Ellis Park

Sweeney has declined to provide any names for legal reasons but the recruitment process is being conducted with the knowledge of Gallagher Premiership clubs.

“We believe we’ve got such a wealth of English coaches in the game. As a leading rugby nation we should be developing English coaches and an English style of play,” Sweeney said.

“That should be long-term and therefore the preference would be to have an English set-up, as far as I’m concerned.

“There’s a very definite plan. We’ve got a war room that’s got every English coach you can imagine – based here and based internationally.

ADVERTISEMENT

“It’s got contracts and all sorts of things. We’ve got an advanced succession plan in place.”

Jones will enter next year’s World Cup in France with the understanding that there will be no possibility of extending his reign into a ninth year and beyond.

“Eddie is fully aware and knows what we want to do,” RFU director of performance rugby Conor O’Shea said.

“There will be some people who say that will disturb the World Cup prep because people will be looking over their shoulder, but Fabien Galthie was appointed France coach before the 2019 World Cup.

ADVERTISEMENT

“It’s the right thing to do because we need to get ready for the 2024 Six Nations and the plan for us will be to appoint that coach before summer 2023.

“Whether that’s embedding them into the programme or taking a helicopter view, that’s a discussion to be had.

Related

“We have so many top English coaches who are in a great position. You look across the Premiership and then you see the quality of people overseas. I want them to be English and I believe they should be.”

Sweeney added that the RFU has drawn up a contingency plan in the event of Jones departing between now and the World Cup, although the Australian continues to retain its full support.

“To think we wouldn’t have a plan B would be a little bit crazy,” said Sweeney, who added that the cost of parting company with Jones and appointing new coaches would not deter the RFU from sacking him if that was the correct decision.

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

J
JW 1 hour ago
'They smelt it': Scott Robertson says Italy sensed All Blacks' vulnerability

Even the 20/30 cappers did too I reckon.


IDK, I think Jordan has a limited life span in this side unless he can develop more to his game. Like you go on to mention, I think theyres more important things to worry about than the effectiveness of someone's extra strings, or secondary components to their game.


Bash backs are Fosters thing, and to a large part they've made it work. Theyre now one of the best teams in the world.


They boy's trucked it up a bit against Italy in the redzone, and against France, wasn't that effective without the right players probably.


Try and take a look at it this way. Dissapointed Havili and Blackadder were in the side? Havili despite clearly shown that he can't do what the team needs at 12 was kept on for the RWC. Back goes down and he brings in Blackadder who doesn't play. Refuses to drop Christie when he should and look who starts this season. Beauden Barret not playing well enough to keep his 10 jersey but we gotta keep him in the side. Weve only got one 8, we stuff developing another I'll just play Ardie every game.


This years team wasn't burdened overly with injuries but they were in every position Razor might have wanted to try and development, severely limiting options. I'm not defending Razor as there was also plenty of other opportunity to make up for it and he was a little gunshy, but I'm also not going to overly criticise him because he chose cohesion over a black slate.

How long are we going to keep blaming All Black failings on Ian Foster.

I think more and more people are on board with it being time to try alternatives, but then again, how would they have reacted to a loss against Italy? 😉

70 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING Fissler Confidential: Willie le Roux rumours ignite after Bok star spotted Fissler Confidential: Willie le Roux rumours ignite after Bok star spo
Search