New Stormers coach Eddie Jones says he wants to play “traditional Western Province rugby” to end the Cape side’s Super Rugby trophy drought.
Jones was yesterday unveiled at a packed media briefing at Newlands after replacing Allister Coetzee on November 1.
The 55-year-old Australian is known for being an attack-minded coach and a guy who likes to implement an all-encompassing game plan. For Jones, winning and playing attractive rugby aren’t mutually exclusive. In other words, you can win rugby matches by playing an attractive style of rugby.
But Jones, who coached Japan to a shock win over the Springboks at the recently completed World Cup, is aware that the traditional strength of South African rugby is the confrontational side of the game. And he wants to add a dash of skill and flair to the power game of the Stormers.
“I’m new in the job but to me, and if you go back in the history of Western Province rugby, Western Province have always been about attacking rugby,” Jones said.
“How we want to mould the team going forward, we want to have the traditional South African base – set-piece, defence, tough, uncompromising rugby. But we want to add that Western Province flavour. We want to be that good attacking team.
“If I’ve got any sort of history as a coach, it’s generally about producing attacking rugby teams. Attack is hard to do, because it takes longer to produce and it involves the ball. But that is where we want to go.
“We want to be the side that people who come to Newlands are excited about the type of rugby we play.”
This transition in style is not going to be easy, especially because the Stormers seem to be stuck in no man’s land in terms of the way they wanted to play over the last few seasons.
There has been plenty of talk about evolving their game plan, but over the years those attempts have also been a bit half-hearted, and currently this Stormers team don’t have an identity.
Jones knows getting the Cape franchise to incorporate their current strengths – a good scrum and a decent maul – with his style of rugby, which requires both fitness and panache, may take some time.
“It varies from team to team. Sometimes it can take you six weeks to change a team,” Jones said.
“I remember running into Bob Dwyer at the World Cup. He coached Australia at the 1991 World Cup, and he reckons he can change a team in a week. I’m probably not that confident!
“Sometimes you can change teams quickly. If you get a good result early, the confidence grows. If you don’t get a good result early, it can take you a little bit longer.
“At the Brumbies, it took us three years to play the level of rugby we wanted to play. Hopefully it will not take us too long here, otherwise I might not be here!” Jones joked.
The first part of the new coach’s plan to evolve the game plan will be the conditioning, because the Stormers will have to play the game at a higher tempo than they have done in the past.
Making good decisions at speed and executing in full flight were some of the traits of the All Blacks’ World Cup title defence this year. But that goes for both their attack and defence, as they were potent with and without the ball.
“The Stormers have got to be able to play with tempo. When we have the ball, we have to able to keep the opposition on the back foot. To do that we have to have repeat efforts, and you have to get off the ground quickly,” Jones said.
“If you look at the World Cup, the difference between the Southern Hemisphere countries and the Northern Hemisphere countries, skill was one factor, but the other big factor was their ability to get back in the game.
“If you look at Super Rugby, South Africa probably trail New Zealand and Australia in that area.
“We are going to be working on getting the blokes back in the game quickly. When we have the ball, we must have numbers on our feet. When we don’t have the ball, we have got to have numbers on our feet. That is what the game is about, getting numbers on your feet, because then you have options.”
The Stormers will start their pre-season training on Monday, and Jones basically summed up what the players can expect in a sentence.
“Plenty of hard work, mate!” the Aussie said. “We will have medicals on Monday and Tuesday, and on Wednesday we will start trying to put together how we want to play.
“We are going to do the pre-season probably a bit differently to what has been done. It’s won’t be a traditional pre-season, there will be strength and conditioning and skills all together to try and develop the game we want play.” - Cape Argus