Eddie Jones has delivered one final insult to Australian rugby -- at least for those Wallabies fans who want to endure one last painful reminder of the debacle that was 2023.
Stan documentary series, The Wallabies, is a three-part series that takes viewers along for the bumpy ride that was Australia's build up to and then the Rugby World Cup itself.
While there are no remarkable revelations, the documentary does a decent job of showcasing life inside the Wallabies' inner sanctum, before reaching its natural crescendo in episode 3. That, of course, centres around Eddie Jones' interview with the Japanese Rugby Football Union, a meeting he denied at the time, but which was later proven to have happened -- and was the original move for Jones to become coach of the Brave Blossoms.
The original Sydney Morning Herald article which exposed Jones was dropped on the morning of Australia's crushing 40-6 defeat by Wales -- a result that effectively condemned the Wallabies to a first-ever pool stage exit at the World Cup.
But it is at training the next day when Jones drops a stinging critique of Australian rugby on one of his former skippers -- Jones used six different captains in 2023 -- James Slipper.
"That's the problem mate, we've got no hardness about us," Jones tells Slipper. "Game hardness is different to any sort of hardness, when you just stick in the f------ game and do it. There's none of that in Australian rugby now, and that's where the big gap is, mate.
"If you look at those Welsh players, mate, they play 30 games a year, they're hardened tough players, so they can just stick at it, and they know they're going to do it. And we've lost that in Australian rugby.
"We're not not tough, but we're not trained to be tough now, and we're not used to playing tough; like it's an exception to play tough now rather than the norm. It stands out like dog's balls, mate... it's set up for failure, mate."
Jones' comments about a lack of games support those from assistant Pierre-Henry Broncan, who told media during the tournament that the lack of games Australian players played compared with their northern hemisphere counterparts was one of the reasons behind the Wallabies' horror campaign.
But Australian fans have also pondered the confusing make-up of Jones' coaching staff, while viewers of The Wallabies will now have a greater understanding of where exactly Jones went way over budget in France, as was revealed by now-former Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan.
There are support staff everywhere, though viewers finally get to see what Neil Craig does inside the camp -- they will make a judgement themselves as to whether his employment, as a direct confidante of Jones, was worth the investment.
Slipper, meanwhile, takes a dig at the timing of the Herald article while Carter Gordon -- who features prominently throughout the documentary alongside Taniela Tupou, Nic White, Slipper and, earlier, Michael Hooper and Allan Alaalatoa -- says "when I saw it I thought, woah, that's interesting".
In the hours after the loss to Wales, Wallabies players told travelling media they had not read the article revealing Jones' planned exit and therefore said it had not impacted the team's listless performance.
The other intriguing part of the series focuses on the injuries to skipper Will Skelton - who producers indicated was not among the documentary's key characters because of the revolving captains and some concerns from Rugby Australia -- and Taniela Tupou, which both occurred in the lead-up to the 22-15 loss to Fiji in Saint-Etienne.
The documentary captures the moment both players went down at training, while Jones later admits he got the preparation of Skelton, in particular, wrong.
Concerns had been raised earlier in the Wallabies' season about the shift to three straight days of training in game weeks, which had changed from the Dave Rennie era when players would train on Monday and Tuesday and then have Wednesday off. Given the stifling conditions in France early in the tournament, there were concerns players were being worked too hard.
The soft tissue injuries suffered by both Tupou and Skelton would seem to have supported that theory.
"Will Skelton, I blame myself for that, I think we got the order of training wrong, so that's my fault," Jones says. "He was just getting fit, he was just getting back to his best, he'd dropped from 153 to 145kgs, so missing some key players and for us they were hard to overcome."
Episode 3 also shows Jones' reasoning behind his decision to keep Skelton's injury prognosis hidden from both the players for 24 hours, and then from the media until one hour before kick-off. There was a feeling at the time that such a decision had only added further distraction to an already unfortunate week for the Wallabies and that is shown in psychologist Corinne Reid's short exchange with Jones during a coaches meeting.
"I think they just wanted to know who was playing, basically? Reid says, before Jones explains why he doesn't want to let the group know Skelton will not face Fiji.
"Well I'm not going to tell them, because I don't want it out to the media," Jones says. "Like if we say Will's out, immediately the players will run to their agents, so at the moment I'd rather them be in the grey a bit, and then I can let them know tomorrow. And we'll name Will Skelton in the team today and we'll just go about our business. All good? Thanks boys."
Away from rugby, the documentary takes viewers inside the homes of scrum-half White and prop Alaalatoa, who saw his campaign end in the middle of the MCG with a torn Achilles tendon.
Producers admitted the loss of Alaalatoa was a blow to their plan for the documentary with the veteran prop previously identified as a key talent alongside Slipper and Tupou, whose twin injuries [ribs] and [hamstring] are well covered.
Whether fans want to relive Australia's capitulation and curse Jones' in the process will be a decision for the individual, though it may be those who find pleasure in pain for whom there is most appeal.
Asked to some up the consensus of feelings for Jones now that he had returned to Japan and taken up the Brave Blossoms post, Alaalatoa said there was a range of emotions across the group.
"There are some guys who are frustrated, probably will how it all [played] out with the way that he went about things, and there is probably a bit of anger there as well," Alaalatoa told reporters ahead of the documentary's release.
"There [are] also boys who are grateful; he took a punt on a lot of young players who probably in the beginning of the year thought they had no chance of playing for the Wallabies.
"So I think there are a lot of players there also, who are much younger, who are grateful for Eddie for giving them the opportunity to be a Wallaby, to get given that experience of playing at a World Cup at the international level.
"So definitely a mixed range of emotions."
Stan's The Wallabies is available to screen in Australia from February 22.