By Ian Ransom
MELBOURNE (Reuters) – A crisp Monday morning on the hallowed turf of the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) promised the perfect setting for Eddie Jones to hold court with the media and drum up support for the Wallabies in a World Cup year.
Instead, Jones was given a harsh reminder of rugby union’s place in the pecking order of Australian sport at the spiritual home of Australian Rules football.
A Wallabies news conference timed strategically to make a splash ended up having the oxygen sucked out of it as the Australian Football League (AFL) unveiled its new CEO on the same morning.
Whether the AFL’s late press call was by coincidence or design, Rugby Australia officials were left fuming as the spotlight shifted away from their global sport to the homegrown game popular in only the nation’s southern states.
If cognisant of the clash, Jones seemed unruffled by it as he talked up the Wallabies’ prospects of filling the hulking, 100,000-seat stadium for the July 29 test against the All Blacks in the capital of the AFL-mad state of Victoria.
“We’ve got a 2-1 record against the All Blacks (here) and it’s the only place in the world we’ve got this record,” he told a small group of reporters.
“If you play against New Zealand, in front of a big crowd where you get all the Victorians coming, 100,000 coming, it’s a great opportunity to play under pressure. And they’re the sort of games that players live for.”
Appointed in January, Jones’s second stint in charge of the Wallabies sees them much diminished from his first when he took them to the final of the 2003 World Cup on home soil.
In 2002, Jones was the last Australian coach to win the Bledisloe Cup, the annual series against New Zealand.
The rivalry once thrilled fans on both sides of the Tasman Sea but it has since been 20 unbroken years of All Blacks dominance.
Nearly 80,000 people packed into the MCG when Robbie Deans’ Wallabies beat the All Blacks 20-15 in 2007, the last time they faced off at the stadium.
While a huge crowd, the AFL trumped that recently with more than 95,000 fans attending the ‘ANZAC Day’ clash between Melbourne teams Collingwood and Essendon at the ground.
Jones’s appointment has helped bring some optimism around the world number seven Wallabies, who treaded water under former coach Dave Rennie for three years after the 2019 World Cup in Japan where they were bundled out of the quarter-finals.
Rugby Australia will hope Jones can deliver Rugby Championship wins along with his sharp wit and penchant for a sound bite to help build more buzz around the fallen twice World Cup winners.
“You only need a week to change a team,” said Jones.
“So imagine in 10 weeks what we can do.”
(Reporting by Ian Ransom in Melbourne; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
