Eddie Jones

England boss Eddie Jones admits an afternoon spent watching rugby fan Pep Guardiola conduct a training session at Bayern Munich left him embarrassed about his own coaching ability.

Jones met Guardiola soon after overseeing Japan’s greatest World Cup performance in hope of learning from the most in-demand manager in football, who is to step down from his post at the German champions at the end of the season.

The Australian was enthralled by the sight of Guardiola making some of the game’s biggest stars toil in freezing conditions, confirming his own view on the capacity of players to be pushed to their limits.

“I talk to a lot of people. I try to meet people who are smarter than me. Last year in November was one of the best meetings I had,” Jones said.

I went to Bayern Munich and met Pep Guardiola. It was absolutely fascinating.

“I watched him taking a training session and it made me embarrassed by my coaching – he was so bloody brilliant.”

“He has got some of the best players in the world – Franck Ribery, Arjen Robben and Thomas Muller – and he just worked them so hard.

“It was -3°C and they came off the field dripping with sweat, they had worked that hard. And they play like 45 games a year. That really reinforced for me how much there is in players.

“Now rugby is a different game because you have got contact, but the ability to work hard and improve is there.

“The 1 thing I’m proud about with Japan is that we showed how much you can actually improve as a team and a player if you work hard and are smart enough. It’s not just about working hard, but training smart.”

Once Guardiola had administered his training-ground masterclass the 2 spoke for 90 minutes, finding some common ground on how their respective sports should be played.

“We talked about his philosophy and about how you move the football into space because in rugby, once you get away from the set-piece, it’s like football,” Jones said.

“Pep is a big rugby fan. He studied rugby and European handball to look at how you move the ball into space.

“You want to have a formation so that players know where to go and know how to move in relation to where the ball is.

“If the ball is fast then we should be at the line and pressing. If it is slow we need a slightly different formation. It is about understanding that.

“You watch good teams play and when the ball starts going forward they all move together and there are options.”

Jones has a simple solution to addressing any simmering squad tension that might exist after fullback Mike Brown said his trust in his England team-mates was “completely shot” by the leaks that emerged in the wake of the World Cup.

“I’m not going to go back into old grievances between the players,” Jones said. “They can sort that out. You talk about culture, well culture is about doing things right.

“If players have got a problem from the past they will need to sort that out, not me. I’ll send them down the pub, give them £ 10 each and they can sort it out.”

Jones met his predecessor as England head coach Stuart Lancaster in December and left the conversation with a clearer picture over some players.

“Firstly Stuart Lancaster is a real gentleman. He gave me all the information he had, some really good thoughts on English rugby,” Jones said.

“He really cares. He gave me some insight into some of the players. You take those things into consideration.

“If you hear those things enough about a player there must be some truth to it. If there is enough smoke, there is a fire there.

“So if someone says he’s an idiot, then another bloke says he’s an idiot and 3 other blokes says he’s an idiot, then he’s probably an idiot!”

Eddie Jones asks Jonny Wilkinson to help him coach England:

Eddie Jones has invited Jonny Wilkinson to join his coaching team after meeting with England’s World Cup winning flyhalf at a supermarket.

The pair were adversaries in 2003 when Jones oversaw the Australia side defeated in the Sydney final, but last Saturday they exchanged views on how best to revive Red Rose fortunes after years of under-achievement.

Wilkinson has been performing a part-time coaching role at Toulon and by the end of the conversation that took place near England’s Surrey training base, he had been offered a position alongside Jones’ assistants Steve Borthwick and Paul Gustard.

“We would like to get Jonny involved, but he’s quite a private person. We are having chats about it,” Jones said.

“I saw him down at Waitrose shopping with a beanie over his head. I had coffee with him.”

When asked what advice Wilkinson gave him, Jones said: “Get them kicking more”.

Apart from Wilkinson’s technical expertise, Jones believes the retired 36-year-old would also set an example through a work ethic that sees him continue to practise kicking for several hours a week.

“After we had coffee he went and did a kicking session and he doesn’t play any more. Why was he one of the best in the world? Because he did that. That’s the difference,” Jones said.

“No-one tells him to do that because he is retired, but he still wants to be a good kicker does Jonny Wilkinson. How many of these players do that now? That is the key going forward.

“Our job as coaches is to create that environment where players are encouraged to do that – we can’t tell them to do it.

“Anywhere in the world the good players tend to rise up and there should be a gap between the really good players and the average players.

“A good player has that little bit extra, and we are talking about 2 or 3% extra.

“He does that little bit of extra analysis, stretches, goes for a swim and takes a bag of balls to kick.

“I want that attitude and I want to see how desperate they are to become a better player.”

Jones, who replaced Stuart Lancaster after England were knocked out of their own World Cup at the group stage, is unlikely to appoint a skills coach for fear of over-burdening players with too much information.

“I need to assess whether we need one. One of the things I heard about the World Cup, and I got it from a number of sources, is that there wasn’t great clarity in the way the players were coached,” Jones said.

“There were a fair few coaches so there were a lot of different messages. That’s something I’m conscious about at the moment.”

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