Eddie Jones’ acrimonious second coming as Wallabies coach has officially come to an ugly end.
According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald, Jones, who won just two matches after taking over from Dave Rennie at the start of 2023 and steering the Wallabies to a disastrous pool stage exit at the Rugby World Cup, has reached an agreement with Rugby Australia to walk away from his five-year contract more than four years early.
The report states Jones will not receive a payout.
“The changes we agreed cannot be done as we planned so I don’t believe I can make the difference we need,” Jones told the Herald’s Peter Fitzsimons.
“Sometimes you have to eat s–t for others to eat caviar further down the track.”
The news follows earlier rumours that Jones had told RA he would be open to an early termination of his contract.
Speculation about Jones’ future at the helm had been mounting since shock reports midway through the Wallabies’ campaign in France that he had interviewed for the Japan head coaching position, which he denied claiming ‘no credibility’ to the story.
As recently as last week he claimed he was fully committed to Australian rugby, telling News Corp he hoped to be a ‘catalyst for change’ in the country’s flagging high performance system.
Jones’ departure brings to a close one of the more bitter coaching stints in Australian rugby history.
Named in January after the abrupt sacking of Rennie, mere months after he himself had been ditched as England’s head coach after seven years at the helm including the 2019 World Cup final, Jones won just two of his nine matches in charge.
A pair of comfortable Bledisloe Cup losses proved an ominous sign of things to come, with the Wallabies losing disastrously to Fiji (22-15) and Wales (40-6) to crash out of the tournament at the earliest stage for the first time in their history.
The mutual termination comes as a major embarrassment to Rugby Australia and chairman Hamish McLennan in particular.