Opinion
Hard to swallow: The moment in Wallabies doco where Eddie’s excuses demand a reply
Peter FitzSimons
Columnist and authorBloody hell.
The Stan doco on the World Cup debacle, The Wallabies: Inside Rugby World Cup 2023, which aired on Thursday evening, is like watching a devastating car crash in slow motion – but worse. In this one, you love the occupants and know what is going to happen, although they don’t until the last moment. But you just can’t look away.
And despite your shouted warnings of, “the brakes, Eddie, hit the BRAKES! … Fer Chrissakes, yank the steering wheel to the right!” – they’re still skidding towards the wall, and it’s not only the twisted metal and maimed team that shocks.
It’s the detail, the behind-the-scenes stuff along the way, that pulls you in. See, as one who was over there – attended training, did interviews, went to every Wallabies match and was interviewed for the program – I was already familiar with the broad brushstrokes of what happened, as were all of you who followed our coverage, particularly Tom Decent’s. But only now do we see the sheer insanity of much of it.
In a piece in The Guardian, Angus Fontaine captured the vibe of the whole thing really well.
“A losing team from an ailing code, a polarising protagonist who goes on to betray his side, a cast of sad sack interviewees who get injured or dropped, and an ugly piece of history – the first Australian team eliminated in the World Cup’s pool stages – make The Wallabies a bruising watch.”
Eddie Jones before the Wales match.Credit: Getty
But now lean in, the day after the shattering 40-6 loss to Wales, which ended us. Eddie Jones is on the field with veteran prop James Slipper.
“That’s the problem, mate, we’ve got no hardness about us,” Eddie says. “Game hardness is different to any sort of hardness, when you just stick in the f---ing game and do it. There’s none of that in Australian rugby now, and that’s where the big gap is, mate.”
And he was only warming up!
“We’re not tough,” Eddie went on, “but we’re not trained to be tough now, and we’re not used to playing tough. Like, it’s an exception to play tough now rather than the norm. It stands out like dogs’ balls, mate ... it’s set up for failure, mate. They are good players and they care, they are just not hardened to play Test match rugby consistently.”
James Slipper after the Wallabies’ loss to Fiji at the World Cup in France.Credit: AP
Bloody hell!
Slipper is a good man, a great servant of the game, and ambassadorial by nature. But on receipt of this view from Eddie, I wish we could have gone from fly-on-the-wall documentary to scripted film, because there were a couple of things I wanted him to say and do. I wanted him to grip Eddie by the lapels, lean in, and say on behalf of the Australian rugby community:
“Eddie! You’re acting like you’re only the piano player in this brothel. YOU are the one that left most of the hardheads behind! I’m close to the only bastard here who can remember the new millennium, as the rest of them were barely out of nappies at the time. Some of them weren’t even born! How could they be Test-tough as a breed, when we are the youngest team here?
“Oh, and Eddie, when it comes to commitment, to putting yourself on the line, can you talk to us about Japan, mate? You’re talking to us about the great renaissance of Australian rugby on the back of our total commitment to the cause, when we all know you’ve had your first interview to go to Japanese rugby!
“Eddie? #FFS!”
He didn’t say any of that, at least in the footage we saw. But I wish he had. John Eales once said to me: “No one is a complete waste of space, Fitz, you can always serve as a bad example.”
This doco is compelling, but it also serves a great purpose for incoming Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt. This is how NOT to do it.
Everybody needs good neighbours
Meantime? Meantime, not that you’d know it, but the Australian cricket team is across the ditch in NZ playing a Twenty20 series to see who will hold the ... Chappell-Hadlee Trophy?
Remember it? Launched a couple of decades ago for T20s and one-day clashes between the sides, it was a big deal for a while, but now seems largely forgotten.
And it is our fault. A two-Test series against New Zealand starts on Thursday but, in the almost 80 years beforehand, we have played only 60 Test matches against our nearest neighbours! By comparison, we’ve played India 107 times, and even Pakistan 72 times.
In a world where Test competitors seem to be getting ever more thin on the ground, our Anzac relationship needs to be nurtured, not merely tolerated as it seems to be now. Yonks back, former All Blacks captain Gary Whetton said to me that what is good for Australian rugby is good for NZ rugby, and we need to take the same attitude to Kiwi cricket.
Paris via Uzbekistan for Matildas
Stand by, sports fans. The Matildas bandwagon is about to get rolling again, and this time I want to be onboard good and early. On Saturday, they play the first leg of their Olympics qualifier against Uzbekistan, in Tashkent, with the return leg in Melbourne on Wednesday. It remains a pity they will be without injured superstar Sam Kerr for the foreseeable future but expect the Matildas madness to start shortly. It will be huge. Not Taylor Swift huge, but still pretty huge!
What they said
Security expert for the Manly Sea Eagles Michael Malligan on the risks facing NRL players in Vegas: “The intel I’ve received is these people would have started their homework on the players once it was announced we were playing in Vegas. They will probably know more about some of our players than I do, and I’ve worked security at Manly for 10 years.” I made a strong reply in my column on Thursday.
Australian former cricketer Colin “Funky” Miller, who spent two decades working for Las Vegas casinos, on what he’d tell NRL players: “My advice would be if you are in a bar at 3am and you are approached by a beautiful lady, just remember you didn’t suddenly get handsome. No one gets better looking after midnight.” Not true. As I was once told by an Englishwoman: “I’ve never been to bed with an ugly man, but by god I have woken up with a few!” (Sadly, she said it in the early morning.)
Darcie Brown on Alyssa Healy being dismissed for 99: “We’re all a bit devo for her but at the end of the day it’s just one run.” Devo? Seriously?
Broncos star Reece Walsh.
Corey Parker on Reece Walsh. “I have never seen anyone with his following. There were girls running in front of the bus and screaming for his autograph.” Were they 75 years old? Autographs? In 2024? Seriously, I said.
Andrew Abdo on taking the NRL to the US:“It’s not going to be an overnight success. If it was that easy, everyone would have done it.” Well actually, the cricket World Cup is happening in the USA this year. And it will co-host the next soccer World Cup in 2026. There has also been Test match rugby in the States.
Eddie Jones on what he thinks of the Wallabies documentary: “I’ve got no idea and don’t really care, mate. That’s all history now. I’ve moved on. If you keep looking back over your shoulder and keep wanting to go back or escape from what it was, it doesn’t treat you at all well in what you’re doing. I don’t want to look back now.”
Australian swimmer Cameron McEvoy on missing a world title by 0.01 second: “But if I was to tell my 2016 to 2022 self that I would be standing here right now, just 0.01 off a second world title ... I’d be super proud.”
England’s defeat in Rajkot was their worst under Ben Stokes.Credit: Getty
Michael Vaughan on England’s record-breaking drubbing at the hands of India this week, while pursuing Bazball: “Even when this England team have lost in the last two years you have always been able to take positives ... or they haven’t been hammered. This is looking like a wake-up call that surely sends a message you can’t just play one way against quality teams.”
Equestrian Australia chief executive Darren Gocher on the storm in a teacup with Olympian Shane Rose after he rode a horse in a mankini:“Shane has reflected on the incident and has apologised. He understands the high standards expected of everyone involved in our high-performance program.” For all that, it was the first time in yonks that equestrian stuff has been in the news outside of an Olympics.
Phil Waugh on the Australian women rugby team looking for a Matildas moment, by appointing a full-time women’s coach: “You look at the Matildas last year and the importance of going deep into a tournament, ensuring you capture not just rugby lovers but sports lovers in Australia – we’ve got that opportunity.”
Crossword clue in this masthead last week: “3 down. Sport played by the Matildas Answer – soccer.” That makes it official.
Leisel Jones backing an idea to move the AIS from Canberra to Queensland: “In the middle of winter, [Canberra] is the most awful place to be, especially when you’re a swimmer and if you’re doing summer sports. It’s a terrible place to train and prepare for anything because it’s the coldest place you’ll ever go.”
Team of the Week
Matildas. Play Uzbekistan on Saturday night in the first leg of an Olympic qualifier.
Taylor Swift. Played the MCG more times in 2024 then several AFL clubs will during the home-and-away season.
Waratahs. Kick off their season on Saturday against the Reds at Suncorp. Sigh. We are hoping for the best, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Matt Ebden. The Australian will become the world’s No.1 tennis doubles player on Monday.
Alex de Minaur. While the Demon cracked the top 10 in singles at No.9.
Jo Yapp. Ex-England rugby international is the Wallaroos first full-time coach.
Watch all the action from the 2024 Super Rugby Pacific season, kicking off on February 23, with every match ad-free, live and on demand on Stan Sport.
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