Eddie Jones says NZ Rugby needs to provide detail on its decision to sack Scott Robertson just two years into his four-year contract.
Robertson exited the All Blacks job last week after a scathing 2025 performance review and rumours of a player revolt.
Jones, however, warned against reading too much into anonymous reviews, drawing on his own experience.
“Every team now, generally speaking, does an anonymous team survey at the end of the season. Any disgruntled player now, they can take it into that survey,” he said on the Rugby Unity podcast.
“At the Brumbies, I was a young coach coming through, and they did a survey in the first year where we came 10th. We were terrible, and we didn’t do anything to change what had been done before; we basically ran with the model that was there, which had been successful.
“Next year, we changed it to train much harder, had a different approach to the game, players became a lot more accountable, we were more demanding of them.
“I remember the survey came back and everything was s**t, but we came fifth and that was on the way to becoming champions. You’ve got to be careful about these things, particularly anonymous surveys.
“I’m sure the high-performance team that looked at it from a New Zealand point of view looked at it very thoroughly and looked at all of that, but you do have to be careful on the surface of what you get back from surveys like that.”
Jones said the lack of detail around NZ Rugby’s explanation was troubling.
“The implication is that the senior players didn’t trust the coaching team … based on? What didn’t they trust them on?”
“We don’t actually know the detail. They tell you everything else, but they don’t tell you the crucial point.
“If it’s not based on results – which it isn’t – and it’s about senior players not trusting the coaching group, then what exactly didn’t they trust? There’s been no mention of that. Was it selection? Was it the captaincy? Was it the way they were playing or training? Was it conversations or stories that were told? What was it?
“I’ve been in a season review myself where I made one comment to a player he didn’t like – that can happen – and that suddenly became a question of whether the coaching was up to standard.
“For me, that’s a key issue that needs to be discussed.”
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The Japan head coach, who previously had stints with the Wallabies and England, ruled out any suggestion he could replace Robertson.
“I don’t think I’m a candidate, so let’s not go there.”
Photo: Ryan Hiscott/Getty Images
