Eddie Jones has been confirmed as the new coach of Japan, where he was boss between 2012 and 2015, less than a month after he left his previous job at Australia.
The ex-England coach will join up with the Brave Blossoms on January 1, and his first game will be against his former team at the beginning of their summer tour in June.
The Japan post will be Jones’ third in just over a year, after being sacked as England boss in December of last year and departing the Wallabies on November 25 this year.
Jones managed just two wins out of nine matches as Australia boss, failing to win a single game against a tier one nation and seeing them knocked out at the pool stage for the first time in the history of the Rugby World Cup.
That came after a miserable end to his England tenure, which saw them win only one out of four Autumn Internationals for the first time since 2008, and led to his dismissal after a second consecutive Six Nations with only two wins out of five had applied pressure earlier in 2022.
“The Japan Rugby Football Union is delighted to announce the appointment of Eddie Jones as the new head coach of the Japan national team, the Brave Blossoms,” the Japan Rugby Football Union (JRFU) announced.
“Eddie Jones will officially commence his duties from 1 January 2024.”
Jones repeatedly denied he was in talks with Japan whilst in the Australia role, prompted by an article in The Sydney Morning Herald that suggested he had held such talks shortly before the Wallabies’ doomed World Cup campaign.
The Rugby Paper’s Blindside column continued to report he was emerging as Japan’s frontrunner, most recently confirming that he’d held a second interview with the JRFU last Thursday, but even after Jones had announced his resignation from Australia he maintained that he did not believe he was being lined up for the job.
He will hope he can be as successful as he was in his first spell at Japan, where he managed the team to a 67 per cent winning record and earned test wins against tier one sides Wales, Italy, and most famously in the 2015 World Cup, South Africa.
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