Former Australia and Waratahs flyer Mark Nawaqanitawase has defended Eddie Jones after the veteran coach guided the Wallabies to their worst ever Rugby World Cup performance in 2023.

Under Jones’ mentorship, the Wallabies struggled throughout 2023 and eventually won just two out of nine Tests played during that year.

Jones was the Wallabies’ coach for several years through the early 2000s. He returned to the position in 2023 after a stint with England, replacing Dave Rennie in the build-up to last year’s World Cup.

However, the 64-year-old eventually resigned from his position under controversial circumstances shortly after the global showpiece in France before taking over the coaching reins at Japan whom he also coached from 2012 to 2015.

The past year has been an eventful period for Nawaqanitawase as he was part of the the Wallabies squad during that forgetful Rugby World Cup campaign and then signed to join NRL outfit the Sydney Roosters and earlier this year he also represented Australia’s sevens side at the Olympic Games in Paris.

The 24-year-old made 11 appearances for the Wallabies in 2022 and 2023 and scored six tries during that period, with Rennie handing him his Test debut in a narrow defeat to Italy in Florence two years ago.

Forever grateful to Dave Rennie

Despite finishing on the losing side and only spending a short period of time with Rennie, Nawaqanitawase is forever grateful to the New Zealander for handing him his international debut.

“I only had a short time with him. Obviously I was only selected for that spring tour but I loved him,” he told the What a Lad podcast.

“He’s a very smart man, in terms of strategically and all that.

“But the thing I loved about him, he gave me the confidence. I still remember sitting down with him before the Ireland game and it was just that soon.

“I was just sitting in the hall in the hotel and he just said to me ‘Just go and get the ball. Go do you’.

“And then for me, like as, you know, like I, obviously I like having the license to be able to do those things.

“And for me, it gives me confidence because I know he believes, you know, if I get the ball, I’ll do something for him. So I appreciate that a lot.

“And that’s something I like, just to the license you know, to be able to play freely, obviously within system, but, just knowing he had the confidence in me to do things for the team.

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“He was a great coach and it would have been interesting to see how it would have gone if he stayed on.”

Although Rennie was sacked shortly after the end of Australia’s 2022 end-of-year tour to Europe, Nawaqanitawase admitted that it didn’t really affect him.

“For me I wasn’t really concerned because I was still buzzing from just being a part of the group and playing my first three games, and all that kind of stuff,” he said.

‘Eddie Jones is Eddie Jones’

“But obviously you’re hearing Eddie Jones, obviously you hear of Eddie Jones before and think okay, that’s Eddie Jones, Eddie Jones is Eddie Jones.

“You know, it’s obviously like what could have been, that’s kind of what it was like, oh, what could have been, you know, it kind of ended pretty quickly I feel. So I don’t know, it is what it is.

“It happened and, you know, we won’t ever know how it would have gone differently now.”

Nawaqanitawase admitted that things changed under Jones but said although the results were not forthcoming, he enjoyed working with him.

“Definitely a different intensity. He trained us hard. He had a different way of doing things,” he explained.

“But obviously we didn’t have the best year with him. But I actually loved it. Yeah, I actually loved it.

“So I can’t fault him. You know, there’s a certain way he wanted to do things, and people can pick (on) him, I don’t know, say whatever they want to say, but damn it, I enjoyed my time under him. It’s easy for me to say because he was picking me!

“But, like obviously a very different sort of coaching style (to Rennie). But he worked hard. He definitely worked hard. I’ll say I give him that.

“That’s the one thing I hear people say like ‘Was he really there the whole time?’ He was, he was working nonstop.

“So like, I could never fault him.”

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Src: Planetrugby.com - https://www.planetrugby.com/news/code-hopper-opens-up-on-playing-under-eddie-jones-for-the-wallabies