With the 2019 RWC winners unavailable to test against the Wallabies, some Australian media described it as a “spare” Bok team.
In the post-game press conference on Saturday, a reporter asked Jones: “Eddie, you expressed your disappointment during the week that you didn’t play first-choice Springboks. Are you feeling a little off right now?”
Jones smiled at first in response but his mood quickly turned sour. “South Africans are good at winning. So you don’t have to be a clever mate.”
Then another reporter asked if he was looking for a similar performance next week when they play Argentina in Sydney to the performance the Wallabies put in after Jones made his debut in charge of the Wallabies at Loftus in 2001. Impossible by dropping the All Blacks in Carisbrook, Dunedin, And it’s a place they’ve never won before.
“Yeah, sure, 100%. I have no doubt we’ll be back. We’ve been beaten up really well and really today,” said Jones, referring to the reporter who had infuriated him earlier, “that our fellow here,” calling my b-team. So I didn’t know. Never has there been a Springbok team called a B team. But now we have a new term. So now we have to step up because we weren’t good enough.”