Nick Cain column: Slave-driver Eddie Jones will whip squad into shape

Phil Kearns is no shrinking violet, and this week he launched a clever strike aimed at destabilising the England squad coached by that nation-hopping member of the same Randwick brotherhood he belongs too, Eddie Jones.
Kearns, a former Australia captain, who, like Jones played hooker for Randwick, is now a TV broadcaster, and one who is clearly happy to get into a verbal joust with the Red Rose coach.
Kearns predicted that the ‘fanatical' intensity Jones brings to coaching will make demands that will exhaust and break this generation of England players. He said that while it might bring short-term success – such as the first Six Nations Grand Slam for 13 years and even a series win Down Under – it will not be successful on a longer-term basis.
Planting the seeds of doubt in the enemy camp is a well-trodden subterfuge, and double World Cup-winner Kearns scattered them wide. He said that Jones' habit of lashing the players to constantly raise their standards eventually stops working. He also raised the spectre that after a sharp rise in performance the dip might happen before the 2019 World Cup.
Kearns asked: “In the short term they will be incredibly successful over the next two to three years. The big question is what happens after that?”
Then the criticism became more personal. “He is a very astute coach but there is a point where the fanatical work ethic goes too far. There's not a lot of people in the world of Eddie Jones. There's one bloke, and that's him. That's his world. I actually think he's a good guy. But he is massively intense, and he ensures his team works hard to the point – I have heard – of overtraining them.”
The Kearns attack continued with a reference to unnamed players in the Japan team which beat South Africa last year in one of the biggest World Cup upsets: “I've heard a couple of the guys in the Japan team say they would never play under him again because they could not keep up with the workload it was so intense.”
Kearns signed off, “It will be interesting to see how over time the Pommies go…”
Kearns might, inadvertently, have done Jones a favour. Jones would not have been as successful as he has been without being able to adapt and tailor his coaching and man-management methods to the groups he's been involved with.
But even even the most successful operators need reminding that they do not always get everything right – and Kearns has posted that reminder.
Sure, there has been intensity about most of what Jones has done since taking on the England job, but it was necessary to remind this generation of players that you will not becoming world champions without a totally uncompromising work ethic.
What is also true is that when you are always pushing the boundaries yourself -– and have humility and a thirst for knowledge – of the sort apparent when Jones talks about the methods of Pep Guardiola and Guus Hiddink in football, your enthusiasm is contagious.
Four years of that is what wins World Cups. It is also the period that Jones has signed on for with England – and if he reminds not only this generation of elite England players, but the next also, of what it takes to be world champions, he will have done the Red Rose game a huge service.