Eddie Jones will no longer travel by public transport after being targeted with verbal and physical abuse that he believes identifies recent comments made by Gavin Hastings as ill-judged.
The morning after England had been beaten 25-13 by Scotland at Murrayfield, Jones travelled alone by train via standard class from Edinburgh to Manchester to be a guest of Sir Alex Ferguson at Old Trafford.
Once Manchester United had defeated Chelsea 2-1, the Australian completed the final leg of his six-hour journey to London knowing that using public transport was no longer a viable option having received abuse from rugby and football fans.
VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: England coach Eddie Jones being verbally abused as he arrived in Manchester on Sunday after rail journey from Edinburgh. Disgusting after he was good enough to pose for photos. Now says doesn’t feel safe on public transport. (Warning: contains offensive language) pic.twitter.com/z2RetgKZOG
— Dan Roan (@danroan) March 1, 2018
“I’m a human being. I don’t consider myself any different from anyone else, so for me to travel on public transport I thought was OK. But I’ll make sure I won’t in future. It’s as simple as that,” Jones said.
“I can’t because it was shown on Sunday what happens when I do. That’s the world we live in. I was massively surprised. It wasn’t comfortable.”
When asked whether the abuse was physical or verbal, Jones replied: “A bit of both.
“It’s part of the challenge. As an Australian coaching England, there were always going to be challenges and that’s just one of them.”
“As a supporter of one of his opponents you just want to rub his face in the dirt,” said Hastings, who won 67 caps in a distinguished career spanning nine years.
Jones believes that Hastings and Berghan should have chosen their words more carefully due to the influence they wield.
“It magnifies that if you’re in a position of responsibility you’ve got to be careful what you say,” he said.
“Because if you talk about hate and you talk about rubbing peoples’ nose in the dirt, and all those sorts of things, it incites certain behaviours and are they the sorts of behaviours that we want to see?”
“I never knock back a request for a selfie unless I’m racing to somewhere. So I try and do the right thing by the fans, but if this happens then you’ve got to have a look at your own safety,” he said.
Sandwiched in between bouts of being vilified by supporters, many of whom were drunk, Jones enjoyed an illuminating discussion with former Manchester United boss Ferguson that helped rationalise only the second defeat of his 26-Test reign.
“He mentioned a lot of matches where things went wrong and a lot of the times you don’t have a solution to it and that’s the reality.
“We don’t have robots, we’re human beings and on a day, things can happen to people and we don’t know why. If we knew, then everyone would have a hundred percent record.”
