‘The pressure is on Australia’: Eddie Jones fires a shot at the Wallabies. Sort of

August 6, 2026 — 7:30pm

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He came, he zoomed, he logged off.

So went a brief, and only mildly spicy, pre-game press conference from Eddie Jones on Thursday night, as his Japan side prepares to meet the Wallabies on Saturday in Osaka.

The anticipation of some verbal fireworks from Jones was only natural. Here is a man who has, over the course of his long career, made an art of dropping a well-placed barb or pressurising critique of a green rival.

Sometimes, as it unfolded near the end days of his ill-fated 2023 Wallabies return, those barbs were even aimed straight back at the scribes asking the questions, along with instructions to apply some self-inflicted upper cuts.

Jones departed the Wallabies soon after and landed back in Japan. Almost three years on, Australia are in Osaka to meet his Brave Blossoms. It is not the first meeting - Jones’ side lost to the Wallabies in Tokyo last year - but with residual tension still in the air, a new Wallabies coach and Japan an ever-improving side, the clash on Saturday still carries just as much meaning.

And so it came to pass that Jones was sitting at a desk in the Japan team hotel on........

© WA Today