Why Eddie Jones Was Right to Accept England's Eligibility Rule

One of the major elephants in the room was cornered, captured and chased out no sooner had Eddie Jones taken his seat at his first press conference as England’s head coach.

The Australian, who watched his own country ascend to the final of the 2015 Rugby World Cup after tossing out their rule not to select overseas players, told the assembled media that he would abide by the same regulation in England.

Per Sachin Nakrani of the Guardian, Jones said:

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Sometimes you see things differently when you’re on the outside ... I want players who want to play for England and if you want to play for England you have to play in the Premiership. I’m happy with that.

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The RFU’s stance, to recap, is to allow their head coach only to select players plying their trade outside the English system if he can demonstrate that exceptional circumstances make it necessary.

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This caused much controversy for Stuart Lancaster as first Steffon Armitage and then Nick Abendanon scooped the 2014 and 2015 European Player of the Year gongs and yet remained persona non grata due to their employment by French clubs.

There were good tactical reasons for picking Armitage, but given that Lancaster did not seem to favour the kind of game that suits the former London Irish man’s particular skill set, they were null and void as far as "exceptional circumstances" go.

Indeed, Armitage was on the verge of joining Bath for the very purpose of making himself available for England back in 2014, per BBC Sport, but that deal never came off.

It demonstrates, though, that if a player thinks he is in with a shout of playing for England, he knows where he needs to be.

Former England international Brian Moore took this stance in his column for the Telegraph in May 2014:

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There is a simple solution—if Armitage truly wants to play for England above anything else he can return, particularly as there would be no shortage of suitors.

The policy is based on ensuring that its players are able to take a full part in all preparation sessions and all games for which they are required.

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The same goes for New Zealand, who apply the same rule while offering players the flexibility to head off to Japan or Europe or wherever the mountain of cash is piled highest at opportune moments, ensuring they are back in the franchise system and under the rule of the All Blacks head coach in good time for the World Cup.

If Englishmen have a burning desire to double their pay packets in France and not damage their chances of playing in a World Cup, perhaps they will time their sojourns in the same way.

Those who opt to go for good will always have their own reasons.

But that demonstrates why Jones is right to live with the ruling as it is. It was a happy coincidence that—as if buoyed by his support for the English clubs, who must surely have feared an exodus to the non-salary-capped fields of France had Jones taken a lighter to the policy—a phalanx of Englishmen starred in Premiership colours as they enjoyed a clean sweep of victories in the Champions Cup last weekend, including over Armitage’s Toulon.

And it helps keep the accord in place between RFU and Premiership, which includes the payment of as much as £80,000 per player picked in the Elite squad, per PremiershipRugby.com.

Prior to his appointment, plenty of column inches were filled with appraisals of Jones as a boat-rocker, a straight talker who will do things his way or no way at all. This one move somewhat waters down that theory.

Instead, he has immediately backed his men, insisted there is abundant talent this side of the channel and, crucially, backed himself to coax it out of the players, as Mick Cleary of the Telegraph recently argued:

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There are riches to be tapped into. It would be no surprise if Jones were already compiling a list of 50-60 players he wants to run the rule over in the coming weeks once he clocks on next Tuesday following his round-the-world flit on prior commitments and to relocate from Japan.

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There was a period prior to Lancaster’s announcement of his extended World Cup training squad during which the clamour for Armitage and Abendanon was reaching fever pitch, as though those two players would be the panacea to all the team’s ills.

No one knows if they would have been the white knights who rode in to carry England out of the pool and on to who knows where. But it also painted a picture of a helpless coaching staff presiding over a neutered squad unable to win trophies without them.

Jones has moved to banish the chance for that theory to be resurrected, insisting it’s not one player, but he and the coaches he chooses to work with who will have the job of making the men at their disposal better, making them the best versions of themselves.

The richest union in the world has the player base and resources to achieve that goal, which is why Jones took the job.

He is confident in his own abilities, and when those skills start to bear out on the way his England team plays, the envious glances will not be from the Premiership players at the payslips of their mates across La Manche. They will be directed in the opposite direction.