England vs Australia Test brings out the inner rivalry between Eddie Jones and Michael Cheika in spirit of the Ashes

Rarely a press conference goes by when Eddie Jones decides not to use a cricket analogy to sum up the situation facing his England side.

“We're gonna bowl sharp off spinners,” he said ahead of the second autumn international of the series against his former side, Australia. “We bowled a lot of flat off spinners against Argentina - eight overs and none for 17 last Saturday. Now we need a couple of wickets. There are always ways to take wickets.”

Needless to say, Jones’ comments always cause a smile when he turns to his other sporting love, mainly because there is always a fresh take on how his side are playing. But the build-up to Saturday’s encounter has unsurprisingly been on the opposition just as much as his own side, given the strong links that bind him to the Wallabies side.

For starters, there no looking beyond the fact that he’s Australian, no matter how much he buys into the English way of living during his reign as national coach. The England head coach spoke enthusiastically this week of his desire to beat Australia, almost as if he was born and raised TW2 on the outskirts of Twickenham Stadium.

But eventually Jones returned to his roots, and even drew on his own experiences as Australia coach, a job he held from 2001 until 2005, and the attempts to try and take down the “mother country”.

“It's an important game, it’s England vs Australia and they’re always important, certainly when I was Australia coach it was the game on the tour you wanted to win and I’m sure Australia’s the same now,” he said.

“We were part of the Empire and we always looked up to England, England was seen as the mother country, it’s like the little brother trying to take on the big brother.”

Then there’s the rivalry with their current head coach, Michael Cheika, a former teammate and now long-term adversary. Contrary to public perception, the two still get on well off the pitch, with Jones using his trip to the other side of the world in the summer to watch the British and Irish Lions to also pay Cheika a visit.

“We catch up but there is a competitive nature to it,” he explained. “When I was back in Australia in June we caught up and had a coffee together. We had a chat about where his team was and where we were as old mates.”

The pair turned out for Sydney-based club Randwick during their playing days, before Jones made the move into coaching with the same side in 1994 – a job that Cheika would go on to secure seven years later. Since then, the only other job they have shared is the Wallabies gig, and for Jones 2003, see Cheika 2015. Both took Australia to a Rugby World Cup final when they were not the pre-tournament favourites, and both suffered the same fate, with Jones losing out to England and Cheika coming off second best to the All Blacks two years ago.

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Jones was only given two years after that Sydney defeat before the Australian Rugby Union [now Rugby Australia] gave him the boot, something that still harbours angry memories for Jones. Cheika looks like he will have the full World Cup cycle to try and go one better, and if he does so at Japan 2019, he’ll make sure that Jones knows all about it.

That’s why it was a surprise that it took so long for the verbal barbs to restart this week. Both coaches do not mind the odd back-and-forth through the media, and both know how to brush it off with a pinch of salt. Cheika took the first swipe on Thursday, accusing Jones’ defence of intentionally targeting Australia’s half-backs in the past with late tackles.

Jones refused to rise to the challenge on Thursday – was this suddenly a new approach from the 57-year-old? No, it turned out. Jones instead issued a response on Friday, giving himself time to think of a well-constructed response that centred around Cheika’s claim that he would not discuss his gears over the English defence with Saturday’s Kiwi referee, Ben O’Keeffe, having raised issues with the 28-year-old’s handling of their recent matches this year.

“Obviously Australia enjoy the media more than the referee,” Jones said on Friday morning. “I have coached over 100 Tests and before every Test I have had a meeting with the referee.

“It's a sign of respect that you want to know what he wants from the game. It's a mutual exchange of information for the benefit of the game. We have played four games against Australia and had good referees in those games.

“Obviously Cheika feels the referees haven't done a good job so possibly he should be taking that up with the referee and not the media.”

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Cheika has since taken up the chance to meet with O’Keeffe – what many would give to be a fly on the wall during that meeting – but as is the case with every war of words, the talking stops come Saturday morning. What is left now is England’s biggest test this year, a clash with the third-ranked side in the world, and if they can see off the Wallabies for the fifth time in succession, Jones can rightly turn his attentions towards taking down the All Blacks when they meet for the first time in four years next November.