Roy Keane once said to Sir Alex Ferguson: "You've changed." To which Ferguson replied: "I hope I have. I would never have survived if I hadn't changed." On a sheet of paper, you could draw a line between managers who bend to circumstances and those who stick to a set of ideas, come hell or high water.
In the lives of most radical, scorched-earth coaches, there is a point when the team stops yielding to the messages from above, and the coach has to start yielding to the team. Eddie Jones has reached that stage.
Divisive figure: Eddie Jones.Credit:AP
As another set of autumn internationals approach, it seems a while since Jones was seen as the clean-up guy for the 2015 World Cup: the martinet who knew how to win big games and was less interested in "culture". Those were bracing times. England's new Australian tough nut dished out cold realities and constantly challenged players. Back then, Jones had all the power.
Who, in a nation that had failed to make it beyond the group stage at their own World Cup, was going to argue with a workaholic who wanted England to be fitter and mentally stronger in the biggest matches?
People who knew him from previous incarnations – especially in Australia – had warned English rugby not to expect a smooth ride beyond the first two years. But after 18 consecutive wins, nobody was inclined to listen. His trademark style of training ground intensity, dawn emails and verbal arrows was hailed as an antidote to English softness, as well as the tendency, in some winning England sides, to seek out the nearest bed of laurels.
As South Africa, New Zealand, Japan and Australia hove into view with a World Cup less than a year away, Jones inhabits a very different landscape in which senior backroom staff have left, some players may be finding it all a bit much, and five games in a row were lost earlier this year before a crisis-stopping dead-rubber win in South Africa.
Those forking out to attend four Twickenham internationals are entitled to wonder how this will all play out. The worst scenario is that Jones's reign is already heading south, thus dooming the world's richest rugby nation to another World Cup debacle. But a brighter outcome is still possible, because there are signs Jones is turning away from his favoured confrontational approach, though the ruthlessness survives.
Mike Brown, a regular under Jones, has surprisingly been dropped for the Springboks game.
Will Carling, who retired 21 years ago, has joined the camp as a "leadership mentor" two days a week, which restores the 1990s crew to the cabinet. Carling has been hired along with Jonas Dodoo, a sprint specialist, and Jon Clarke, a strength and conditioning expert from rugby league. These technical appointments are less significant than Carling's return, because England's youngest captain, at 22, will bring a new, old way of seeing life.
Much of what Jones said about Carling's role encourages the hope that England's coach accepts the need for a change in emphasis. "He [Carling] joins the great past of England to the present," Jones said. "He's a bit of a specialist in leadership. He understands English rugby, so combining the skill of leadership with the knowledge of English history is a nice resource for us to have."
England's defence coach is a Kiwi, John Mitchell. His attack coach, Scott Wisemantel, is Australian. The extraordinary churn of coaching staff in the past six months is cited as one reason for thinking the Jones regime is about to implode. Another view is that he has put a glove on the iron fist.
"I can't preach to the players about having pride in England," Jones said, in relation to Carling signing up. "I've thought we have had possibly a gap in that area."
If there was "a gap", it was because Jones thought he could impose his will. Previous England coaches might have told him how hard this is in an age when players are exhausted much of the time and living on the edge of the next injury. "Beasting" players sounded fine when England were winning 18 games in a row. It looked less like a long-term recipe when 2018 fell apart with Six Nations defeats by Scotland, France and Ireland, and a fifth-place finish.
After two more defeats, in South Africa, the wisdom of extending Jones's contract beyond Japan and 2019 seemed questionable. Yet, a chance still beckons to start afresh, even with rugby's annual autumn farce of injuries. An advantage Jones has is that he was never wedded to a particular style of play.
He was never on the ramparts defending an aesthetic manifesto. He has "pragmatist" tattooed on his backside. But he certainly displayed a fixed way of going about his business – and of viewing the culture he walked into – with an unforgiving eye.
Dotted across World Cup history, in all sports, there will be cases of teams winning despite the coach. But surely Jones cannot believe these England players can be whipped and cajoled to victory in Japan. If Carling is one sign of adaptation, it may yet all come together. Do coaches ever change? The next four Saturdays at Twickenham could answer that.
The Telegraph, London
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