A defiant Eddie Jones maintains Australia can win this year’s Rugby World Cup despite facing the very real prospect of arriving in France without a victory in 2023.
A last-gasp try to Juan Martin Gonzalez consigned the Wallabies to a dispiriting 34-31 home defeat to Argentina on Saturday night, marking the first time in history Australia have lost successive Tests to the Pumas.
The heartbreaker followed up last week’s 43-12 mauling by the understrength Springboks in South Africa.
Adding insult to injury, scans on Sunday revealed influential centre Len Ikitau will be sidelined for up to eight weeks with a fractured scapula.
“Performances like that, we won’t go far at the World Cup,” said dejected co-captain James Slipper.
Jones, though, remains “100 per cent confident” the now-eighth-ranked Wallabies can bring the Webb Ellis Cup back to Australia in October.
“At the moment, it seems like we’re miles away from where we need to be. But all this is going to make us harder and more hungry to get it right,” he said.
“We’re a team that needs to change. We know that. And that’s the reason I’m here in the job.”
After setting up Australia’s first try with a quick tap and sharp footwork, instinctive winger Mark Nawaqanitawase looked to have saved the Wallabies’ blushes with a rousing 95-metre intercept try with five minutes remaining at Commbank Stadium.
“Fantastic,” Jones said of Nawaqanitawase’s dazzling display.
“Every time he got the ball, he lit the stadium up. Kids are jumping off the edge of the seat. He’s that sort of player.”
Alas, three minutes later, the Pumas snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.
But Jones is urging fans not to lose hope 55 days out from the World Cup kick-off.
“There’s probably no-one more despondent than me. I probably ruined three radios in the coach’s box,” he said, while also confessing to “certainly sleeping less” since taking over from the sacked Dave Rennie in January and being hailed as Australian rugby’s saviour.
Jones says there’s no magic dust he can sprinkle to instantly revive the Wallabies’ fortunes.
“It was always going to be difficult if you’re coming off a base where you’ve been consistently unsuccessful for a period of time, which the results show that,” he said.
“We’re trying to change the team and also trying to change the way we play. So we’ve sort of double-whammied this, and I’m quite happy to accept that we’re not where we should be.
“But I’m also quite happy to tell you that I think we’re on the right track and we’ll get there.
“It would have been easy if I came in, take the team, pared everything back and played a really simple game.
“But that’s not going to win us a World Cup.”
Jones says the Wallabies will persevere with playing several different ways in their two coming Bledisloe Cup clashes with the All Blacks.
“We’re a bit like a broken car. I remember my first car was a Datsun 1200. You’d fix the handbrake and the next day the windscreen wipers would break, and we’re a bit like that.
“Last week our set-piece wasn’t good. This week our set-piece was good. Last week, we didn’t attack. This week we did attack, but our decision-making around the ball was poor.
“This is a bit of a process we’ve got to go through. So, whilst it seems like it’s doom and gloom at the moment, beating inside here is a fair bit of optimism that we’ll be able to change fairly quickly in the next couple of weeks.”
