Matt Dunning first met Eddie Jones in June of 2003 in a meeting room of the Wallabies’ hotel in Coogee. After three seasons of Super Rugby the then 24-year-old loosehead prop was uncapped by Australia but had been chosen in the Wallabies squad as the Rugby World Cup loomed.
After the pair shook hands and sat down, Jones raised his trademark left eyebrow and dispensed with pleasantries immediately, according to Dunning.
“He says: ‘Tell me, Matthew, if zero is the worst prop ever to lace up a boot and seven is an international, what would you give yourself after your first year in Super Rugby [in 2001]?’” Dunning says.
“I said: ‘I dunno – three?’ He goes: ‘Three? Bullshit! You were hopeless! Dreadful! You were a zero.’”
Dunning rated his second year as a two, which elicited the same response from Jones, who then asked about the current year, 2003.
“I’m not getting caught three times,” Dunning says. “I gave myself a one.
“He says: ‘Nah bullshit! I’d give you a three. You were much better this year. But I’m still not going to pick you. I’ll pick someone out of club footy before you and I’ll do that until you’re a four.’
“Then he says: ‘OK, you can go now. See you at training.’”
Within four months Jones had picked Dunning to play his first Test match – a 142-0 hiding of Namibia in a World Cup pool game in Adelaide – before the prop came off the bench for Bill Young and played the last 18 minutes of that storied final won by England in extra time.
Last week Dunning joined 24 former teammates and staff from 2003 in Sydney for a reunion. One talking point was Jones’s recent description of a media call at Sydney airport as “the worst press conference I’ve ever had in world rugby”.
For Nathan Grey it feels like deja vu. “I’ve heard him say a similar thing to a group of English media and he also said a similar thing to Japanese media,” he says. “It’s just the way he chooses to deal with [perceived criticism]. As a head coach, you get the right to do that.”
Grey says the current Wallabies won’t need to worry what Jones thinks of them – because he’ll tell them.
“You definitely knew with Eddie what was required to be your best,” he says. “He had a very, very direct way.
“But it wasn’t like: ‘You’re bad at X,’ and leave you in the lurch. It was: ‘You need to fix this, this is how you need to do it and this is how I can help you do it.’ And then he’d leave the choice up to you whether you wanted to deliver or not.”
Outside the head coach and a hot camp in Darwin, there are few parallels with the current squad’s preparation and that 2003. In a home tournament, those past Wallabies rode a wave of public support akin to what the footballing Matildas just experienced at the Women’s World Cup. The dressing room walls were plastered with faxes and emails, sent by everyone from the governor general to a six‑year-old in kindergarten in remote Western Australia.
Jones’s side in 2003 had leaders to whom he often deferred. There were generational, world XV players: George Gregan, Stephen Larkham, George Smith. They were smart, fit and hyper-competitive. Gregan had as little patience for mistakes as Jones, delivered searing “stink eyes”. The prop Al Baxter says Larkham had the smartest rugby brain he had ever known. Several of the squad had won the World Cup in 1999. They were full of Super Rugby-winning Brumbies.
Of Jones’s current 33-man squad for France, 25 will be playing their first World Cup. There are 21 players with less than 20 Tests and 15 with less than 10. Jones has picked Will Skelton as captain while Michael Hooper (117 Tests) and Quade Cooper (75 Tests) didn’t make the World Cup squad at all.
Meanwhile, the former Melbourne Storm winger Suliasi Vunivalu has been picked in the squad on potential. The 27-year-old has had hamstring injuries and appears to lack confidence. Outside Jones’s belief, there is no compelling case to pick him.
Dunning thinks Jones has a soft spot for “larrikins” – himself, Smith, Elton Flatley, Jeremy Paul. It may explain, in part, his preference for rugby league players. If there were grumbles in 2003 it was that the Wallabies back three in the World Cup final were former rugby league internationals, Mat Rogers, Wendell Sailor and Lote Tuqiri. All three performed well and remain well liked by teammates. But Joe Roff (who would play 86 Tests) played nine minutes off the bench while Matt Burke (81 Tests) was in a suit in the stands.
Jones will “live and die” by his decisions, Dunning says. “It’s what I like about him: he just backs his team. What everyone else thinks … he simply doesn’t care. He’s just about the team and the performance and equipping them to do their best.”
Dunning played 45 Tests for Australia and says he thrived under Jones. “He got me to perform because he drove the standards and I wanted to match up to them,” he says.
“I didn’t want to let him down. He looked after me. He was good to me. And I came from a place where if someone does the right thing and they back you, you want to do everything you can not to let them down.”
