Chris Jones on South Africa's 27-13 win over England

Chris, it's always great to catch up with the times online at rugbypass.com, mate Chris Jones, okay, we've got plenty to talk about first and foremost, although there will be a couple of reviews. Wales will have one and the best. The best news is that England is going to have one and the best news is that they send an email saying there will be a review, but they want everyone on the review panel to be anonymous, but they send a notice, how? What the hell works? So we all know who they are, but now they are anonymous.

They are fine? It seems they only agreed to join the panel if they could remain anonymous. Now, what would be expected if they really are. When killing someone in a gas chamber in an American prison, you don't necessarily want your name to go into the public domain. Choosing the England rugby coach. I don't think he falls into the same kind of category, but there you have it. That's the rfu at the moment when they are making all kinds of strange decisions, we know that in the past, when, when Eddie was reviewed and after each championship, a question could be asked, well, if it is that bad after the last two six nations, how is it still? at work and that's a question we asked ourselves once again, but we know that people like Brian Ashton, the oldest England coach who took them to the 2007 World Cup, and here, McGeek and the England coach Lions have been used as sounding boards in the past.

Whether they would be involved again, who can know because they are anonymous of course, Eddie Jones has a rock solid contract until the World Cup next year. You know, the real, realistic possibility of it being removed and also. Where does Scott Robertson fit into this? Because here in New Zealand what we're thinking is we're thinking Razer is just floating this around, just remind the New Zealand Rugby Union that if they don't lock it up now we're not going to get it and we know how well they did it. New Zealand Rugby trying to replace Steve Hansen as coach last time, so there's a bit of maturity to reflect on the fact that I really like that Scott has done a really good job.

I mean actually the arrivals desk at Heathrow has been full of coaches from New Zealand coming in and available for jobs all over the UK at the moment and we'll move on to Gats in a minute but yeah the knives are very well done, has had a lot. from uh patsler back from the players who have worked with him with the barbarians yeah he's on that short list along with Ronan O'gara and Steve Borthwick uh that England are looking at that's for after the 2023 World Cup because you know who pay uh Eddie £750,000 and I was part of the parliamentary inquiry into the rfu's handling of the wasps and the demise of Worcester in the week and Bill Sweeney got an absolute kick from the MPS he had to defend himself against all the different guys of accusations and he will be right in the middle of whether Eddie stays or goes and the fact is the guy doesn't know anything about rugby, all he kept telling us was that Twicken's utility bills have gone up from two million pounds to 78 million pounds. this year due to inflation increases and therefore they probably won't make a profit, so you can extrapolate that to paying Eddie £750,000 a year and having to pay him, they don't have the cash so it means stays and is going to make it to the World Cup, so where does that leave Razer?

Because you know, we don't know if Ian Foster wants the job after the World Cup, what do the All Blacks do in that World Cup? he wants to stay, I mean, you know that's because there's also a complicated employment law situation in New Zealand, where you can't hire someone for a job that you already have someone in, that's called redundancy. constructive, well, but can you guys? afford £750,000 to keep Razer in New Zealand because obviously that's the going price for an England coach and, by the way, that's the going price for an England coach who is still allowed to have all his banking and whiskey in Japan. a consultant for the San Diego Legion, you know, being a rugby consultant with his son Tory in Japan too, so it's a good job to get the rfu one because because of what they've allowed Eddie to do, you can win three. quarters of a million pounds and I still have probably five or six more contracts and they won't stand in your way, so honestly it's a big job here in terms of money and raising it.

I know he wants the all-black job. But wow, if he could do a good job with England and then go to the All Blacks with a big pupil in his bank account sounds pretty good, doesn't it? What are you choosing now? What do you think he's going to happen? I think he has a very good chance of doing it, is if he is prepared to wait for the All Blacks for the next cycle and probably not. I think we'll probably end up with Roman Agar and Balthick as favorites and then Eddie will do it. Go be in charge of USA Rugby for eight years, well, you know, Dave Rooney's name has been around too.

I mean, surely that's a place to go and where your career dies, right? They've been bankrupted by it a couple of times in the last five years, you know, they keep telling us that rugby is going to completely take over the US market. I mean, you know what Bill Sweeney says that because the guy who says that makes the same sense? I don't want to say it won't happen. The future of Dave Rooney, uh, the future of pvex, is all up in the air. Now, aren't the gats going to take over that world store? Well, it was very, very interesting when the match was covered. on Saturday, uh, before and after, who's on the touchline, yeah, with Michael Checker talking about what happened, but Warren Gatlin, he's in Cardiff, he's in the right postcode to be off work and, uh, what we understand is at the forefront of discussions. of the Wales review that is going to take place and, yes, they will be very attentive to the feedback that says whether we can afford to have another debacle like the one we witnessed on Saturday, after the Italy debacle, after the Georgia debacle, how many debacles a coach can suffer without being fired and you could say, well, he hopes Eddie is doing pretty well, no, but this is something very different.

The playback is that I think it's almost certain that he will hit the flying elbow and initially at short. In the short term, I wouldn't be surprised if they don't hire Warren to take them to the World Cup and then obviously he can argue after that, but yeah, he'd get himself a pretty lucrative job to take Wales, you know, back to the country. where he's still a God, you know all the clubs, he won four Six Nations titles, you know, he got both World Cup semi-finals, the guy has a fantastic record in Wales, he's a God in the principality and it wouldn't be like that .

You think he would love it, wouldn't he be the man to save Wales heading into the World Cup? Would love Chris Jones Times online rugbypass.com. Let's see the results. Ireland beat them in every Autumn International. France won them. All of England lost against Argentina, they beat Japan, they tied with us, they were beaten by South Africa, we won three, we tied against England and I capitulated in the last 10 minutes. South Africa Lost Island narrowly lost to France, narrowly beat Italy and then absolutely defeated England. Those are the five teams that I think most of us think have a chance of winning the World Cup.

Any outside of those five, apart from Georgia, there are no 13 wins, 13 losses for the rugby championship teams against the northern hemisphere teams and one draw, it's very close. Isn't it between the two hemispheres now and that's all thanks to Ireland and France? I was very impressed by what South Africa did against England. I thought the way they are set up now is, for example, their brilliant attempt from a terrible England kick was that they were going for it and they were going to do it against Willy LaRue. It's become really important in terms of triggering this attack and they have this identical guy there, you don't even need cheers and Kobe.

We have another guy who is just as fast with just as good footwork and who is small, but when you have a group like an African group playing on Saturday, you can take the small guys out because you want them to use that speed and Khaleesi spoke next. about finding a lot of problems this year and you've seen a lot of their problems in the games they lost, they found some solutions. Today I received a message from a former England manager who told me there were too many problems with England. Problems are not enough Solutions and that's what one of the guys used to get involved with them he sees it now, he looks at that team and he sees a lot of problems for which the South Africans have found answers to their problems.

To a large extent, I sometimes keep Russia quiet, then they will be in a really strong position. I think going into the World Cup because now I see that in certain areas they have some depth and yes, and that's good to see. Because you want a strong South Africa for the World Cup, you want to stop at strong New Zealand and God knows what you'll get from Australia, their third team just beat Wales so they must have some strength in depth ah. My goodness, there are so many surprises there, how much does home advantage count? How much do these results count when it comes to next year's World Cup?

There is no doubt that Ireland are fantastic experts at winning the way they want. they play right now and it will take a very, very good team to stop them in France because in the conditions of the northern hemisphere they are going to be happy, very happy, France, good strengths in depth, they will have to get to what has always hindered them before , which is the weight of expectations and they've shown this year that they can probably handle that, you know, winning against South Africa was important when they're getting beat up, it's them, they're the real deal.

I was impressed with the way New Zealand played for 70 minutes, talking in a style that I thought was a very clever way of playing tactically and shows that you're starting to pick up some of the aspects that Wayne Smith always brought to the table. the game, which is a real tactic, is now understanding how to break down an opponent and that happened for 70 minutes. And South Africa I thought was well worth it, probably a little bit bigger win against England, so you've got that kind of Four teams that I would say are looking pretty good going into 2023, God knows what the situation will be with Australia, England and Wales, it just seems to be a boss case and unless Messiah Warren takes the place, you're part of the world.

Chris um and the all black scene, I'm going to give you a list here, you can choose to pass it, it's not good enough, dangerous in the equation, not quite, the All Blacks evolved potentially, really well, a place in the semi-finals, in The best case scenario, a semi-final. final place at least something there is one to choose yes dangerous and in the equation there is no way you can rule out New Zealand at the moment because there are signs that you know if you can get another 14 people to play like Audi survey you will be absolutely fantastic for the World Cup, unfortunately parts of that team seemed a bit tired at the end of this tour which is understandable, you really need to look after Hardy and you know you're starting to put it together which could be very important for you and, yes, you need New Zealand to get straight into that World Cup because that opening match will set the tone for what could be the best World Cup we've ever seen because I really can't pick a winner at the moment.

Can you choose favorites and boys again? The teams that will be in the equation, but you can't pick a number one team that's going to win from now on, and that's great, that's great. position to be in will ultimately be about referees and interpretation of the law. I wrote a couple of things when I was watching him yesterday in England, South Africa. um the referee, you guys are too far away from each other um tight head, uh, reaching too far in and down for me and I was thinking, okay, maybe those of us who watch rugby can probably understand that, but for anyone neutral observation and when the Titan extends too far in and down for me, I mean, that's how it goes. to attract people to watch the sport and also the different interpretations and I asked Andy Capistana about this as well, the idea that referees have to be spread all over the world, you know, nowadays it's all about fairness and equality. and inclusion and you have to have a referee from every part of the planet, as well as being the best referees, to what extent will this affect the World Cup and cause chaos?

Well, I can tell you what There was something incredibly sad and worrying on Saturday, which was that the rfu had planned for Mark Wayne Barnes' 100th Test which he achieved, with a half-time salute, he was going to go out onto the field and be saluted, but for what a rassi He had put into the mix the death threats that the family ofWayne Barnes had received terrible online abuse that the rfu at the last minute pulled that celebration of his hundred Tests which is an incredibly sad thing for rugby and something we should all be concerned about because if that is happening on a global scale and the referees and we have talked about this before it started to get more and more abuse, so yes, it will be more difficult to referee a match because the players will have a certain attitude towards them that has been instilled in them by their rugby directors that They've been acting, uh, dubious.

Videos that they can cut however they want and you end up with a guy in the middle being put under such intense pressure that you almost wonder, yeah, why would they keep doing it if they're going to get death threats and vile abuse? Yeah, it got ridiculous on Saturday to trick them because I heard Ox in the refling say: referee, are you going to continue changing your cadence now? If you don't understand what he's talking about, say, what is he saying? What do you mean by Cadence? Of course it's just saying that the referee kept changing the call to start, was delaying him more and more and then wanted a gap in the tie that he hadn't heard before, so this is just a problem that's not going away it's a Australian referee trying to decide between England and South Africa, what should be and always should be a fantastic fight from the start, but he was trying to control it with the most technical reasons and the most technical requests that even the loose-headed South African prop was completely confused and if he is confused, what the hell are they going to do in the crowd?

They won't know what's going on.