Jones out to banish Australia’s Pretoria ghosts against Boks

PRETORIA : Australia’s second era under Eddie Jones starts in Pretoria on Saturday at a venue where they have never tasted victory and against a South African side brimming with players aiming to stake their claims for World Cup places in France later this year.

Jones has returned to coach Australia for the first time since 2005, having been jettisoned by England in January, and has promised to restore the team to playing the ‘Australian way’.

His interpretation of what that means will be fascinating; many of his predecessors have made the same promise but with varied ideas on what this style entails.

Much of the talk leading into the test at Loftus Versfeld, where Australia are seeking a first win at the seventh attempt, has been of them having to repel an aerial assault by the physical Springboks, who will hit them on land and in the air.

Jones has selected the big boot of Reece Hodge at centre to punish poor Springbok discipline from penalties at altitude and gain territorial advantage.

Quade Cooper returns at flyhalf after his Achilles problem, while co-captain James Slipper survived an injury scare and takes his place in the front row.

Flanker Tom Hooper will make his debut at the back of the scrum, while there are three more new caps on the bench - prop Zane Nonggorr, lock Richie Arnold and flyhalf Carter Gordon.

"It will be better than the Ashes, mate," Jones said with a smile on Thursday when asked how he expected the contest to go. "Let me tell you what we're going to do. We going to roll our sleeves up, and we are going to dig in.

"We've really tried to tackle the ghosts," Jones added. "There's a lot of ghosts of Wallabies teams out there. We've tried to take on the concept of playing at altitude and playing in front