Dylan Hartley on whether Eddie Jones is liked by England players and why pay cuts were ‘a really good idea’

Former England captain believes you don’t need to be liked to be popular when you’re the national team coach, but feels Jones has the full support of his current squad

Former England captain Dylan Hartley believes Eddie Jones doesn’t have to be liked to be popular when you’re the head coach of an international side, but insisted that he does hold a good relationship with the players he selects.

Jones’s reputation precedes him as a tough-talking and abrasive head coach, which has been known to rub up some players the wrong way and lead to criticisms of his approach by those who work with him, yet reap rewards with the majority of teams that he has worked with.

His methods include early starts, intense training sessions to mirror Test-level matches and strategic approaches to press conferences, which have often seen him cross the line and land himself in hot water with rugby authorities.

Hartley got to see Jones up close and personal during his three years as England captain between 2016 and 2018 until injury forced him out of the set-up and into eventual retirement, and the former Northampton Saints hooker believes being liked is not important on the international stage given what is at stake for the players involved.

“He’s got to be popular, he’s the boss!” Hartley told Wednesday’s edition of BT Sport’s Rugby Tonight on Tour show. “He’s very organised, very detailed, and he’s personable. But he’s also very hard and direct - a great coach.

“The thing is, when you say ‘is he liked?’, it doesn’t matter if he’s liked. He is liked, but playing for England or playing international rugby is aspirational. When you play for a club, you could sign a two or three year contract and you could fall out of favour but you’ve still got a job, and you’ve still got to go to training every day. You don’t have to turn up and impress, you can just check in and check out. I see players do that.

“When you play for England, if you don’t perform every day, you’re under a microscope so you need to be there to impress, and if you don’t you’ll go and they’ll bring in another player who wants to do it. So does he have to be popular? No.”

Hartley was also asked for his thoughts on the coronavirus contingency plan that has seen all Premiership clubs impose a 25 per cent reduction on player wages in an effort to save their futures, with rugby union in England set for significant difficulties in the coming months due to the sport’s shutdown.

The 34-year-old believes it was the correct decision to make, although not every club went about it the right way, and using his relations with his former club he feels the right way to do it is to bring the players into the club decisions themselves to give them a full understanding of what is at stake - for many it is their very existence.

“We’ve to look after our league, our clubs and the players and that’s why I think the pay cuts are a really good idea,” Hartley added. “It’s not a pay cut for the sake of taking money from the players and the staff, it’s literally a way to keep clubs afloat because the last thing we want is people taking full pay and then clubs going under.

“It’s a really short-sighted view from a playing point of view and that’s why I think, well I know, there’s a lot of players on board with the pay cuts.

“When it was sat down and explained to the players, they had that understanding that it is more of a long term plan, I think that was a great way to do it. I know the Saints did it, they almost incorporated the senior players in those discussions. When you have understanding amongst your player group around the decisions for the cuts, it is much easier to take the news.

“I know some clubs just got served a letter, telling them this is happening and it was met with lots of questions. Northampton did it in a really great way.”

See former England captain Dylan Hartley open up about pay cuts and much more on BT Sport’s Rugby Tonight on Tour show, airing on BT Sport 1, Wednesday 8 April at 8pm