RFU leave the door open for Eddie Jones to become new British and Irish Lions head coach in 2021
Jones committed himself to an additional two years with England on Wednesday after agreeing to extend his stay with the national team
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Your support makes all the difference.The Rugby Football Union have left the door open for Eddie Jones to become the new British and Irish Lions head coach for the 2021 tour of South Africa after confirming that his surprise contract extension that runs until the same year does not restrict him from taking up the prestigious role.
Jones committed himself to an additional two years with England on Wednesday after agreeing to extend his stay with the national team, subject to a performance review after the 2019 Rugby World Cup. The 57-year-old has made it clear that anything other than winning the next global gathering will be regarded as a failure, although the RFU’s chief executive, Steve Brown, refused to go into details about what outcome in Japan next year would activate the break clause.
The decision goes against what Jones has said since taking the England job in late 2015, having claimed that he would see out his previous deal to the end of the 2019 World Cup before heading off into retirement that he planned to spend “watching cricket” on the beaches of the Caribbean. Yet he insisted that the decision to swap Barbados for Bagshot, where Jones’ England squad announced today [Thursday] will gather next week for the Six Nations, was not a U-turn as he had never been arrogant enough to believe he would be offered any extension by the RFU.
However, the matter of fact is that he accepted the new offer to remain with England until 2021 – and in turn work with his eventual successor for the final 12-18 months of his tenure – that could see the new individual take over in time for Jones to lead the Lions to South Africa.
“[I’ve] Always been committed to England since I started. That’s my role,” Jones said. “I am not arrogant or presumptuous enough to think I would be offered the Lions role.”
But it is a role that Jones admitted last year would interest him, even if his old adversary Warren Gatland fancies one more tour to complete the set after leading the touring side to a series win over Australia and historic draw with the All Blacks last summer.
While Jones remains non-committal on the Lions role, Brown confirmed that the terms of the new contract do not prohibit him from working with the Lions come 2021, which former CEO Ian Ritchie claimed was included under the original contract that was signed during his tenure.
“No, it wouldn’t prohibit him at all,” Brown said. “Bear in mind that we’re a quarter-shareholder in the Lions and we’ll have some say in that too. Our view in that would be that if we’re planning for success, and we’ve come out of very successful World Cup, and Eddie is the right coach for the Lions, the arrangement isn’t going to preclude that.
“We’re not ruling it out. But it’s quite a way away and there are a lot of things to happen before then and it’s not entirely our say either. This is fundamentally about England but no, it doesn’t preclude a Lions situation if it were to occur.
“It could potentially [overlap] but we would have some say in that too.”
One possibility is that the RFU’s succession plan, which they hope will be implemented long after Jones departs a s new model for the national team’s coaching appointments, will see Jones’ successor take a leading role in 2021 so that Jones could handle the task of looking after England as well as keeping a watchful eye on any and all Lions hopefuls – something that Gatland took a full season to do as he stepped away from his Wales role in the lead up to the tour of New Zealand.
The likelihood is that one of Jones’ current assistants – either forwards coach Steve Borthwich or defence coach Paul Gustard – will be lined up as the replacements in an internal promotion, given that should their contracts be extended like Jones’, they will have spent six years with this England team and understand how it works better than any.
“That has to be the goal that you want to have the best coaching team in the world,” Jones added, though he confirmed that any decision to promote members of his current set-up lies with the RFU and not him. “That’s why it’s exciting for me to be involved in trying to create that. I’d love to be in Barbados in 2021 – I’ll get there eventually – watching an England team being coached by a super team of coaches and playing better rugby than they’ve ever played and that’s the ideal situation.
“New Zealand has shown that if you get the right coaching team in place it can aid the sustainability of the team. It’s easy for any team to have a successful period of time; the most difficult thing is to be sustainable. One of the key factors in that is having a high quality experienced coaching team.”
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