It’s the stories you hear about first, when you’re getting ready to meet Eddie Jones for the first time.
The stories about him being a hard case. That he runs the tightest of ships. That he loves to crack 10 different whips at the same time. You hear too about him being a cyclical coach – the type who’s good for a couple of years, or one tournament, and then it all starts heading south.
So when he was appointed England head coach in the aftermath of our disastrous 2015 Rugby World Cup campaign, my expectations were low. We’d just crashed out in the group stages, and I’d been rubbish.
The night Australia beat us I went into the woods around the team hotel and smoked a load of gaspers on my own, only the lonely owls and invasive grey squirrels for company, which tells you everything about where my head was. I was convinced I’d never play for England again.
Then they announced Steve Borthwick was going to be Eddie’s assistant. This seemed like even worse news for me, because I’d probably given Steve more abuse than any other opponent on a rugby field.
My angle was always along the same sort of lines: you’re the most boring rugby player I’ve ever come across, you’re actually a negative carrier, you put your hand up for the ball, tuck it under your arm and make minus five yards, every carry. I’d even injured him, accidentally – he tore his pec trying to tackle me, and then brought it up every single time we met afterwards.
Joe Marler (right) has lifted the lid on what it’s really like playing under Eddie Jones (right)
Jones was England boss for seven years between 2015 and 2022 — and now coaches Japan
Marler admits his expectations were low when he heard Jones was taking over back in 2015
So I was done for. And then Eddie announced his first squad – and I was in it. He called a meeting on his first morning and this was the gist: today’s a clean slate, I’ve heard lots about you but I’m going to form my own opinions. Genuinely encouraging, all round.
He took us out onto the training pitch. That’s when it began. Five minutes in, he lost the plot. ‘What the hell is this? You’re rubbish! You blokes are running around like you’re playing rugby league. This is rugby union, mate! It’s not rugby league!’
We weren’t stupid. We knew this was pre-planned. We also understood it was a dig at the way we had been in that World Cup. Andy Farrell as a power within the camp. Stuart Lancaster’s feelings about golden child Sam Burgess.
It carried on like that for the first few weeks. Relentlessly abrasive. ‘You English lot are too nice, you’re all too polite!’ Maybe he hadn’t heard what I’d said to Steve Borthwick. ‘What’s your identity? Who actually are you?’
And it was really good. We needed someone to stir the pot. We needed someone to drag us out of this black hole of World Cup grief and introspection. Eddie had a plan. He was brilliant – clear on how we played the game, returning to the traditional English virtues of strong set-piece and power game.
He had heaps of resources, he could always squeeze some extra cash or coaches out of the RFU, no matter how pinched things were getting elsewhere. He did throw a bag of Haribo at Ben Youngs and pretty much call him fat, but we were rugby men and he was a middle-aged Australian, so we let it slide.
Then we played Scotland. Aussie rugby everyman Scott Johnson was there. He came up to me and Dan Cole and nodded at us. ‘Alright boys. How’s The Beaver?’
We looked back at him. Who’s The Beaver?
Jones set what he had previously heard aside and picked Marler in his first ever England squad
The ‘relentlessly abrasive’ England coach quickly lost the plot in training, according to Marler
Marler’s columns will be published during the autumn internationals and Six Nations on Mail+
‘Eddie! You blokes not call him The Beaver? Everyone calls him The Beaver!’
I looked at Coley, Coley looked at me.
‘Why The Beaver?’
‘Cos he looks like a Beaver – a little fella gnawing away at people.’
I’m not stupid, not all the time. I didn’t mention it straight away. I waited for the giddy aftermath of our Six Nations Grand Slam triumph in Paris a few weeks later. We hadn’t gone to bed after beating France. At least I hadn’t. You can’t rush a good celebration.
I walked into breakfast, starving hungry and a magnificent night behind us. Eddie was at the buffet. I went over and slapped him on the back.
‘Alright, Beaver?’
He turned from the tureen of scrambled eggs. The look on his face was enough to scramble every egg in the arrondissement.
The ex-England boss was known by many players as ‘The Beaver’ for ‘gnawing away at people’
Marler once foolishly slapped Jones on the back and called him ‘Beaver’ over scrambled eggs
‘What?’
I was riding a Grand Slam wave. I was riding quite a few bottles of red.
‘It’s The Beaver, isn’t it?’
That look again, the heat turned up to gas mark ouch.
‘Boss will do…’
Fine. I knew where the boundaries lay. Joe, this is the last time you call him The Beaver. But ever since that day his number in my mobile has been Beaver Jones, so there you go.
They were good, those early years. We won that Grand Slam and went on a record-breaking 18-game run. We had a group of players in the sweet spot – some talented youngsters, some older heads who weren’t too old, a core group driven on by that World Cup pain and embarrassment. Eddie was really good at tapping into it.
It all worked, right the way up to 2018. Then we had a terrible Six Nations and lost the first two Tests on the summer tour to a pretty average South African side.
Despite refusing to call him the nickname now, he is saved as ‘Beaver Jones’ in Marler’s phone
Marler recalls how Jones ran England ‘ragged’ and ‘flogged’ them during their difficult 2018
Henry Slade, George Ford and Mark Wilson (left to right) cut dejected figures after England’s agonising 16-15 defeat against New Zealand at Twickenham during the challenging year
Eddie ran us ragged. It was Test matches at the weekend and pseudo Test matches during the week. He flogged us.
It was berserk. We kept asking each other: what the hell is all this about? Boys were breaking left, right and centre. Eddie didn’t seem to care. His attitude was: you break, we’ll get the next one in. If you can’t handle the heat, get out of the scrambled egg tureen.
The press were coming after us. The fans weren’t happy. We weren’t happy. Eddie turned round to us at the end of the tournament and told us it was all part of his plan. He said he wanted to find out about us as players. He said he had found out.
Us senior boys had a chat about it afterwards. Had this genuinely always been part of the plan, or was he saying this now because he’d messed up? My own view was that he’s an intelligent man. He must have meant it. But it was a dark old way of going about it. And did he really need to break so many of the best players in the country?
But there’s another side to him. In the third Test against the Boks in the summer of 2018, I’d already decided I needed to take a sabbatical. 60 minutes in, attack coach Scott Wisemantel came on with the drinks and told me I had five minutes left before Eddie hooked me.
I was quite honest with him: you can tell the boss to do one, I’m staying on for 80 minutes. Scott looked scared, but he got on the mic and passed on the message, and the hook never came.
After the game Eddie came up to me with a bottle of red, two glasses and a big grin on his face.
‘Mate, I flipping love that. Drink?’
Jones, who was sacked in 2022, pictured with current England boss Steve Borthwick in 2018
England faced criticism from fans and the press but Jones says it was all part of his grand plan
And I always be grateful to him. When I was going through a dark time in my life, when I decided I couldn’t play for England any more. I sat down with him in a coffee shop in Brighton. I was nervous. I told him ‘Mate, I can’t do this anymore. I need to leave rugby and sort my head out.’
He was brilliant. ‘Mate, I can see it in your eyes. Let me know if there’s anything we can do to help. Can we help you see someone?’
It was a proper human reaction, not the flippant side of him I’d sometimes seen. It felt like he cared. And he texted me every week after that, asking how I was, telling me to get down the beach and get some sea air in my lungs.
That’s why I’ll always be a supporter of him. Never blindly loyal, and never blind to the errors he made and those players he let down. But appreciate of all he was. The myths, the mistakes. The mongrel magic.
Jones return is just what England need
It’s probably ideal timing for England, the fact it’s Eddie and Japan coming to Twickenham this weekend. England will blood some youngsters, and they’ll score some tries.
The negative narrative that has surrounded team after three losses is understandable but not entirely accurate. England were a drop goal away from beating the All Blacks, 60 seconds away from beating Australia.
England are gearing up to face their former head coach and Japan at Twickenham on Sunday
Their visit is a welcome one for England, who are in a poor vein of form and need to score tries
You have to applaud the last play of the game from the Wallabies, because it was magical to watch. Then against the Boks, England played some really attacking rugby, led by Marcus Smith. But ultimately lost to one of the best South African teams ever.
I think if you’re looking at it as Joe Bloggs and you’re only focusing on results, you’ll be a bit flat. If you’re me looking at where England have come from, there are green shoots.
These little shoots planted in the autumn will be saplings come the spring and the Six Nations, and England can grow with them. Now it’s about the team owning it a bit more.
It’s not all about Borthers. It’s about this group saying, this is our team now, where do we want to take it? How big an oak tree could this little green shoot become?
