Peter Jackson’s column: Hair Bear Adam Jones has to take his share of the blame
The Australian batsman got out before he was pushed, the Welsh prop after he had been pushed. The contrasting views of how they saw their international futures provided another stark difference between them.
Clarke clearly decided that his future was all behind him, a tacit admission that he was no longer worth his place. Jones, on the contrary, felt Wales had done him an injustice by dropping him before his time had come.
Friends, fans and at least one one distinguished international, fellow Lions‘ tighthead Graham Price, agreed with him, all of which would have had the effect of pouring kerosene on the Hair Bear’s fire of grievance. Understandably, he felt ‘gutted’.
He took time to recover from such an emotional state before announcing that he had retired from international rugby. At a time when the rugby planet is consumed by the World Cup, Jones’ autobiography has reheated the retirement issue.
Whatever is contained within the covers, there is unlikely to be mea culpa from the author, that it was the wrong move at the wrong time, not least because he was effectively telling Warren Gatland where to go.
Jones might not have realised that in doing so he was also telling Wales where to go. The multitude across the length and breadth of the land are ever ready to give their right arm to wear the red jersey and here was someone who lived their dreams giving it all away.
No matter how hard he felt done by, Jones ought to have swallowed his pride. Despite his obvious resentment, he should have taken it on the chin, dusted himself down and said: “I’ll always be there if they need me. I’d never turn my back on my country.”
His popularity would have soared ever higher. Good old Adam, they’d have said. Given the bum’s rush by Gatland but you’ll never see him throwing his rattle out of the pram. Not Adam. He’ll be ready to dive back into the trenches whenever they ask him.
Now, had he quit all rugby at the end of last season it would have been a different story. But two months after his Wales retirement last January, Harlequins announced they had signed him.
Maybe the fact that he would not be missing hefty chunks of the domestic season on Wales duty made him a more attractive proposition to Quins and, consequently, worth a fatter contract. Maybe not.
James Hook had been treated far more shabbily than Jones and yet, to his eternal credit, Gloucester‘s former Osprey never threw in the towel, even if he may have felt like doing so. He always made it clear he still wanted to play for Wales and to say that event now appears to be further away than ever is to miss the point.
Even in a professional era when the importance of the Test game is at risk of being devalued, there is nothing to beat playing for your country.
The only justification for retiring is because of injury or because you fear your best is behind you.
Jones had been a Test player long enough to have known the harsher realities of life as an international, that it is all liable to end in tears because that is a fact of sporting life as it tends to be in every other walk of life. The longer you last, the harder the fall.
Very few are privileged enough to pick their own retirement and go out when they say so, as opposed to some coach, manager or selection panel. Brian O’Driscoll is the most recent example and Paul O’Connell, his Irish compatriot, will be the next.
Martin Johnson called it a day after winning the World Cup for England because, as an international, he had done everything there was to do. Gareth Edwards and Phil Bennett managed it in the late Seventies after winning a Grand Slam but not even a player as formidable as JPR Williams could find immunity from ultimately being dropped.
It happens. Jones denies that he holds any grudge against Gatland in which event why quit? The Wales coach has made no amount of tough decisions, like dropping O’Driscoll from the finale of the Lions’ series in Australia, but in Jones’ case, Wales were at pains to point out that the door had not been closed.
Samson Lee’s ruptured Achilles left the tighthead cupboard disturbingly bare until the cross-border poaching of York’s finest, Tomas Francis. Between them he, Lee and the third tighthead, Aaron Jarvis, can just about muster a quarter of Jones’ 99 Tests.
