Newcastle consultant and former Broncos coach Anthony Seibold will leave his role in the NRL to join Eddie Jones’ staff at England Rugby.
Seibold has spent this season helping head coach Adam O’Brien at Newcastle in a defensive role but will now join Jones on a two-year deal, which will take him through to the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France.
Jones, a South Sydney fan, struck up a relationship with Seibold during his time at Redfen, with the NRL coach also acting in a consultancy role for Jones from Australia more recently.
Seibold will become England’s defensive coach after predecessor John Mitchell became the head coach at Wasps.
“It was too good to knock back,” Seibold said. “It really excites me the challenge of international rugby. I had a relationship with Eddie from my days coaching at South Sydney.
“About a month ago he called me out of the blue and asked what were my thoughts on coming on full time. He had been really impressed with the stuff I had done for them remotely. I had a good think about it.
“In the end there were a couple of things for me. One, Eddie is one of the leading coaches not just in rugby, but in the world. That was certainly something that attracted me to it.
“The other one was the challenge of the game, trying to work out the game and add something to the England team.”
Jones said he has followed his career closely since he was at Souths and believes he can help England win the World Cup.
“We’re two years from the World Cup so we wanted to freshen up our coaching team and get the right people in place for where we want to go – which is to win the World Cup,” Jones said.
“Anthony is a coach that I have had a relationship with since 2019 and have followed his career closely. He is a good coach and thinks deeply about the game.”
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