Make game simpler for mass appeal, says gentle giant Eales

The Brian Viner Interview: John Eales

Thursday, late afternoon, Queensland House, London. Outside, in the Strand, it is cold, dark and beginning to rain. Inside, there are posters of palm trees and sun-kissed beaches, which is disorientating enough, and then John Eales walks in, a man I have only ever seen in Australian rugby colours, usually towering over a line-out, yet here he is, impeccably clad in suit and tie, ready to extol the virtues of his native Queensland – where a quarter of next year's World Cup matches will be played – at a reception for some of Britain's leading corporate movers and shakers.

Before all that, he has time for two interviews, one with the excellent and diminutive Eleanor Oldroyd of Radio Five Live, who comes up to not far above his waist, and one with me.

He is, famously, a gentle giant, so obliging and unassuming off the pitch that one or two of his early coaches questioned whether he would be uncompromising and inspirational enough on it.

His record – 86 Test caps, a record 55 of them as captain, during which he became the first man to lead the Wallabies to victory over the Lions, won four successive Bledisloe Cups and of course two World Cup-winning medals – rather proves those doubts misplaced. Moreover, when Rugby World recently picked a best global XV of the past 40 years, the two second-row forwards were the mighty New Zealander Colin Meads, and Eales.

It is not the past that I wish to discuss first, however, but the immediate future. Rarely outside a World Cup have so many column inches been devoted to an England v Australia game before a ball has even been kicked. For this we must thank the verbal duelling between the two coaches, Clive Woodward and Eddie Jones, who all week have been parrying and thrusting like Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone.

In a transparent attempt to influence today's referee, Woodward accused the All Blacks of deploying illicit decoy runners at Twickenham last week. It was common practice in the southern hemisphere, he said, and he wanted it stamped out before next year's World Cup.

In reply, Jones got sarky; England, he declared, were the best team in the world, immaculate in everything they do.

Where, I wonder, does Eales, who was at Twickenham a week ago, stand in all of this? After all, he has keen antennae for illicit goings-on on the rugby field, telling the referee during the 1999 World Cup final that unless the French stopped misbehaving, he would lead his players off the field. Sure, there's a world of difference between decoy-running and eye-gouging, but you could also say that cheating is cheating.

He fixes me with penetrating brown eyes. "Every year, when England play New Zealand and Australia, the same questions come up about decoy runners," he says. "It's largely a ploy to unsettle the referee, because when he gets out on the field he has a lot on his mind, so there's a chance of getting couple of penalties out of it.

"But referees these days should not be intimidated by that sort of thing. And at the end of the day what is a decoy runner? You're not going to beat a defence except by barging through or running around someone. If a decoy runner impedes the opposition that's a penalty, if he doesn't then that's fine. You need decoy runners in the game of rugby to open up the game, to test defences. The moment he interferes specifically with an opposition player then that's a penalty, it always should have been a penalty, and always should be a penalty. But if through deception the decoy runner causes problems, then that's rugby, that's what it's all about."

None the less, does Eales accept that the northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere countries have different strategies, perhaps according to what they can get away with within the laws? Did he, for instance, ever encourage his players to play to the very edge of what was legal?

"You can't be half-pregnant," he says, softly. "You play within the laws. And no, I think that by and large there's no difference between North and South. England, by and large, play a very similar game to Australia, New Zealand and South Africa." He sees no significance in last weekend's defeats for all three Tri-Nations countries at the hands of England, Ireland and France. "I think," he adds with a smile, "that it's probably the people in the northern hemisphere who've built up this north-south divide."

His own memories of England v Australia meetings mostly boil down to the 1991 World Cup final, and to his debut Test against England in Sydney, "Which was probably the best that particular Wallabies team ever played. The low point was that World Cup quarter-final, when Rob Andrew kicked that fantastic field goal. And I've had some good tussles. Martin Johnson is a tough guy to play against, but the hardest for me were [Wade] Dooley and [Dean] Ackford. I was a young guy coming onto the scene, and they were big, strong guys. That was very demanding. And there was always a bit of banter out there."

Who does he think will be the pivotal players in today's game?

"For England so much revolves around Jonny Wilkinson. He's just outstanding for someone so young. He's taken the rugby world by the scruff of the neck. Australia will look a lot to George Gregan, a man who never plays badly, and Stirling Walcott is consistently the most impactful back in Australian rugby."

It is a little over a year now since Eales himself retired from Australian rugby, with the paeans of fellow sportsmen and even politicians ringing in his cauliflower ears. Indeed, if he had chosen to go into politics himself, he would by now doubtless be well on the way to becoming his country's Prime Minister. For 10 years he bestrode Antipodean sport like the colossus that at 6ft 7in, he is, and even his hard-to-impress compatriot Steve Waugh was reportedly full of awe when Eales addressed the Australian cricket team.

"That," he recalls with characteristic modesty, "was a great honour. For any kid growing up in Australia, the cricket team is the No 1 sporting team. We'd had Steve Waugh along to speak to the Wallabies, and then he asked me to have a chat to his team. It was not long after the 1999 World Cup, and I tried to put forward what it felt like for me to be a Wallaby.

"I talked about a few of the things we focused on going into the World Cup. We were not so much psychologically as cerebrally motivated. In other words, if tactically you know what you're trying to do, and understand how you want to achieve it, then you don't need to psych yourself up."

Whether or not the Wallabies will need to psych themselves up for this afternoon's encounter with England, Eales, suited and booted in the stands, will surely miss being in the dressing-room?

"Not at all," he says. "I love the game, love watching it, but I don't miss playing it, and I especially don't miss the build-up. Once you're walking out of the dressing-room, that's what I like. But sitting there, considering the unknown, when you've already had a whole week leading up to it and just want to get out there, and you've still got to go through the warm-up, I think most rugby players would swap that bit."

Why, I ask bluntly, did he retire? He was 31, no longer old in international rugby terms, and the 2003 World Cup in his own country would surely have given his career the grandstand finish it deserved?

"I spoke to a lot of people, but probably the core advice was from Mark Lion, one of Australia's most outstanding forwards. He said to me that at the end of the day I was the only one who could decide, and that I shouldn't retire unless I felt I'd exhausted my interest in playing the game.

"Those words sat with me. I was not tired of playing Test matches, and never would have tired of that, but maybe I was tired of the stuff you have to go through to play a Test match, the games leading up to it, all the training. I felt that I couldn't go on putting in that sort of effort. Also, I was getting more interested in things outside rugby."

His burgeoning business career now embraces a company called John Eales 5 (he winces slightly as he tells me this; "the name's a bit embarrassing," he says), which has corporate hospitality interests. And he is an ambassador for the Australian Rugby Union. If he were also handed carte blanche to make any changes to rugby he wished, I venture, then what would they be?

"Anything to make it simpler," he says. "If the game has a weakness it's that it is complicated, and it's hard to appeal to the masses when the masses don't have an understanding of the intricacies of the game. Only now in Australia are people understanding it a bit more. Also, there should be uniform refereeing all round the world, at the moment it's not necessarily uniform." Which, of course, is what Clive Woodward has been bleating about this week, I say. A huge smile. "There you go," he says.

But for all the strides still to make, Eales believes that huge ones have already been taken, not least the introduction of orchestrated lifting in the line-out, on which, as arguably the world's finest line-out jumper for the best part of a decade, Eales is well-qualified to comment.

"That has helped the game enormously," he says. "It has cleaned it up and made it easier to understand. The line-out no longer relies on individuals' jumping ability but on working together as a team. Initially [the changes] took away from the competitiveness of the line-out, but once sides started to defend strongly, it became a meaningful contest for possession once again. And it can genuinely decide a match. Last weekend it decided the match between England and New Zealand.

"Also, it's important to maintain the integrity of the breakdown. It wasn't a contest, but that has come back so much in the last two years, through players like Neil Back and George Smith, who are outstanding at contesting the ball at the breakdown."

And what, finally, of the World Cup, a year from now? Can Australia, even without John Eales, win the thing for the third time?

"I think they will have an advantage," he says. "The conditions will be very hot, maybe 35 to 40 degrees, and that saps you if you're not used to it. Certainly, Australia will be very well prepared, but the All Blacks have looked very impressive this year, as have the Springboks at certain times, as have England, as have France.

"I also think that the hardness of the tracks could bring a couple of other teams into the fore as well. A side like Argentina could spring the odd upset, although hopefully not in the first game. This World Cup promises to be different. A lot of the others have been decided to a large degree by the defensive qualities of teams, but I think attack will have a bigger part to play this time. A lot of teams have gone out thinking they must not lose, rather than that they are going to win, and I think there's been a shift in psyche.

"If a game is stop-start, a side like Argentina, with a forward pack capable of matching anyone in world, and some pretty good backs, with a few penalties being thrown around, could easily cause an upset."

Having dispensed both common sense and wisdom, it is now time for Eales to charm the socks off a bunch of business leaders on behalf of his beloved Queensland. He rises from his chair – and rises, and rises. It's been a pleasure, I say. Likewise, he says, and really seems to mean it.