The then 74-year-old slowly pushed himself out of a chair and trudged over to the door.

On the other side was Australian Rugby Union chief executive Bill Pulver.

Overlooking the Harbour Bridge and Opera House, in one of the best vantage points in Sydney, Pulver came into the room and took a seat opposite Jones, the former Wallabies coach turned long-time broadcaster.

"I said: 'Bill, shut up, I just want you to listen to this bloke'."

That bloke, also in the room, was former Wallaby Brett Papworth, who played under Jones from 1985 to 1987 in 16 Tests.

Papworth is club rugby personified. President of Eastwood, he has been a vocal critic of the ARU for many years, adamant they have abandoned grassroots rugby at the expense of the professional arm of the game.

"I had to persuade Bill Pulver to meet Brett Papworth and it was like asking him to swallow poison," Jones said. "Eventually after my pleading, we had a meeting at my house with Pappy.

"I said: 'Bill, I'm not going to put you onto a bum steer. We want rugby to be great again. We want rugby to be strong again. We're all on the same sheet here, mate. Have a listen to this bloke. It's magnificent what he knows and his plan and how he thinks it should happen'."

Like Papworth, Jones cares deeply about the game of rugby in this country.

In a wide-ranging and candid interview with Fairfax Media, the man who coached Australia to Grand Slam glory in 1984 and Bledisloe Cup success at Eden Park in 1986 shares his views on the state of the game, which he says is in "crisis".

On the code overall and threat of other sports

"Australian rugby is in an awful mess and everyone has heard me say a million times, they don't know how to get out of it. If you don't make the turnstiles turn, you don't make money.

"The game is going broke and you're doing awful damage to the game with these sorts of results and people won't come and watch them. I bet Patrick Delaney from Fox Sports won't be happy with all of this stuff.

"This is a crisis here. We're under threat from the Timmy Cahills and from the Greater Western Sydney Giants. The first thing to do, to overcome a problem, is to admit you've got one. I'm sick and tired of hearing what we've taken out of the game.

"Anyone who pretends we're not in trouble, and I'm not talking about the national side, is kidding themselves. There's AFL goal posts going up at GPS schools... this is the crisis."

On the Waratahs woes

"The boys can play, it's a very talented side, but of course good coaching means putting a team together. You know when blokes are dropping and fumbling balls the confidence levels are very low. They're very uncertain and they play accordingly.

"There is no way back from this mess now, they've just got to do the best they can for the rest of the season. There have to be changes.

"On Friday the set-piece was rubbish, the skills were rubbish, the execution was rubbish and [the Southern Kings] are a mob that's conceded 43 points a game or something like that."

On Bob Dwyer's view that last year's Shute Shield grand final was a better standard than the Waratahs game on Friday

"Well that's correct, there's no doubt about that. You could say the same thing about the Kings School and Joey's, that'd probably be better than what you saw."

On coaches

"We've got a coaching problem??? I don't think anyone knows who is responsible for choosing the coach.

"Every time I'm asked who should coach they want to know and go into detail. I did this for Queensland when a job came up. Obviously they think I know nothing about coaching because that person didn't get the nod and there's Queensland in a similar mess.

"Take [Reds coach] Nick Stiles for example. I've got nothing against the man but he's never coached. These people have never proven they can put a team together. That's why we've got the problems we've got. The level of coaching is terrible and there are the results."

On multi-year coaching contracts

"We used to get the job for one year and at the end of one year your performance was rightly reviewed and they called for applications and you went again. What's all this three-year rubbish? Why don't the people who signed Daryl Gibson until 2018 hand in their resignation. The model should be one year and then review it.

"We used to have a national coaching panel when I was coaching Australia, when Bob Dwyer was coaching Australia. It had a lot to do about coaching. I was interviewed by outstanding former players when I became coach of Australia."

On the Brumbies horrible second half against the Hurricanes

"I had a dinner on and it was 21-21 in the 50th minute. I turn my phone on and it's 56-21. It's beyond me to work out how a team can score 56 points, did the defence go home? How could that be? These are serious, serious issues.

On the Western Force and Super Rugby uncertainty

"Can you believe, rugby union in the courts of the land, over a signed alliance between the game and Western Force. They've got it there from 2020. How do you get yourself out of this? The Western Force now I believe have a magnificent template for growing the game.

"They've got a South African - now Australian - coach who is passionate. They've got a funding model over there and they've got more local players in the franchise than any other club. They've grown the game and level of interest. They've even got players contributing to the fundraising structure of the game."

On Brett Papworth's credentials

"The person who has proven that he knows how to reinvigorate the game, in a simple way, is articulate, is informed, was a brilliant player, is Papworth.

"He should be immediately retained by the Australian Rugby Union to recruit the people he wants to completely rebuild the game right now. If they've got the money, pay Papworth one of these glamorous salaries that are going to people who are doing nothing. It'd be Papworth in schools, regions, clubs, bottom up. He has thought deeply about the game.

"We've got people who have presided over the crisis and believe that they should be left in charge of finding the solutions. I cannot believe we've got someone so passionate, so informed, so committed and so wasted, who is writing papers.

On whether the ARU will stick true to its promise of reinvesting in grassroots rugby

"I don't believe them. Sometimes the only way you can get somewhere with these people is to raise your voice [Jones is referring to his extraordinary interview with ARU chairman Cameron Clyne this month].

"They took money away from the grade competition and the ABC. I said: 'How much money do you need?' They said $200,000 and I said we'll raise it. They didn't come back to it.

"So the club competition lost its money, the ABC has been abandoned. So suddenly Papworth and I are talking about grassroots? In 2015 they didn't know about grassroots."

On skills and tactics

"Can you imagine people watching the game and commentators saying, 'Oh, I think we can win the collision tonight'. What the bloody hell is the collision? I thought we were running into space, not people. This is not a game about how many people we can knock over.

"When we do get the ball we seem bereft of ideas and start kicking the thing. I've never known a game of rugby you can win without the football, so why would you be giving it back to the other side?

"There are a whole heap of attitudinal problems here, starting with skill and then with the way the ball is used, whether we play the space or play to people.

"The game was put back 100 years when the Eddie Joneses of this world talk about pick and drive. You don't play football by shoving the thing under your arm and running as far as you can, trying to belt the christ out of the guy in front of you. Over at the grandstands, they're looking for the exit.

"We won a Grand Slam, we won everything. We beat New Zealand in New Zealand. It's not rocket science."