As Eddie Jones surveyed the 40-odd A reporters and six camera crews crammed into a windowless room on the fifth floor of a Tokyo tower block it almost felt like the old days. The last time he was in charge of a Test side in this city it was the 2019 World Cup final and he was coaching England. Five years on, however, it is not just the badge on his chest that has changed.
For a start, he has left two high-profile jobs and been re-hired by the Japan Rugby Football Union for a second stint in charge. And now gazing impassively across at him from the England camp is his former assistant Steve Borthwick, with whom he has worked on and off since 2008 when they were both working for Saracens. The past master is about to be reunited with a former apprentice who knows him inside out.
Maybe that is the reason why Jones opted to thrust out a big front pad to even the most innocent of pre-match questions from the crowded floor. "I know whatever I say to you is going to end up in a headline," he told the small travelling posse of UK-based writers at the back of the room.
Perhaps but, let's be honest, Jones is not entirely allergic to courting publicity when it suits him.
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