Awaken: Dec 20

This week on Awaken, Stan Grant sits down with Australian-born rugby coaching greats, Eddie Jones and Glen Ella.

Finishing the year with 14 successive victories and a win against Australia’s Wallabies, England’s rugby team is more focused than ever under the leadership of Australian-born rugby coaches, Eddie Jones and Glen Ella.

With a strong rivalry between these two rugby nations, what’s driving the two Aussie coaches who have led Australia previously, to team up again to coach the England side?

This week on NITV’s Awaken, Stan Grant sits down with Eddie Jones and Glen Ella for an in-depth talk about England’s winning tactics, the changes facing rugby union, the future of Indigenous players in the game, as well as fond memories of playing rugby together at Sydney’s Randwick Rugby Club as teenagers.

From first crossing paths at the age of five, experiencing a heartbreaking loss to England in the 2003 Rugby World Cup, to masterminding a 3-0 series win against Australia this year, Jones and Ella have both experienced many highs and lows together throughout their 50 years of friendship.

Glen Ella, who’s sports career spans more than 20 years as an athlete, coach and indigenous development advisor, says: “We’ve been mates, obviously we were mates [back] then, we went to Matraville High School together then played rugby at Randwick and much more after that, so our friendship has been pretty strong after all these years.”

Stan also asks their thoughts on coaching against Australia, and what’s next for England as the second top ranked team in world rugby behind the New Zealand All Blacks.

Eddie Jones, born to Japanese and Australian parents, who started his professional rugby career in 1994, says: “England rugby has always been strong at set pieces and strong defensively so we’ve tried to make that the hallmarks of the team. We want to be good defensively, we want to be good at set piece, but if we want to be the best team in the world we’ve got to add good attack, and that’s the next step.”

But it hasn’t always been that easy on the field during their early playing days. Glen Ella mentions tackling racism on the paddock has helped shaped his career today.

“There’d be some racial taunt towards us when we played, but we moved past that and scored more tries and that’s what drove us. The more racial taunts, the more tries we’d make, and that’s how we earned their respect and hurt them back through the scoreboard,” Glen adds.

Through their careers, they’ve both coached several international teams with Eddie fronting Australia, South Africa, Japan, and most recently England. Glen has coached Australia, Tonga, Italy, Canada, Fiji and England.

Tuesday 20 December at 9.00pm on NITV.