Rugby:Word has it that in making his presentation to first the South African Rugby Football Union and then the Springboks players in applying for the newly-devised position of technical adviser, Eddie Jones' analysis of each individual player was so detailed and eye-opening it blew their minds away - that is both administrators and players.

The former ACT Brumbies, Wallabies and Queensland coach admittedly had the advantage of coming from the outside and having coached against most of the Springboks squad. It may also explain why he has cut such a relaxed figure by comparison to most of the head coaches at the 2007 World Cup.

Aside from the security of an impending three-year deal as director of rugby with Saracens, for once Jones has not been the first man in the firing line but he has clearly had a hugely galvanising and positive effect on Saturday's finalists, the only unbeaten side in the tournament.

Yesterday he gave a one-man press conference in which each question was given a considered, lucid and often amusing response, while engaging in a discourse on the game generally. Refreshed by his own new role, he spoke about "having another dig" at Test match coaching in 2011 after his stint at Saracens alongside Alan Gaffney.

At each of the Springboks' warm-up games and six victories at this tournament, it's been striking how Jones has sat alongside Jake White, and how animated the two have been. It is to White's credit that he had the self-assurance to bring in a major coaching figure in the world game from outside. The main beneficiaries, of course, have been the Springboks.

"I think the potential of this side is enormous and I don't think we've seen the best of it yet but there's 80 minutes to go," he ventured yesterday.

Scarily, Jones reckoned the same applied to the tournament's leading try scorer when asked how good he thought Bryan Habana was. "He's good; he's pretty sharp," chuckled Jones with deliberate understatement. "Look, he scores tries other people don't even dream about, and that's his strength. He's not only fast but he's strong. I thought he and JP Pietersen were outstanding in the way they worked back and just neutralised Argentina's kicks, and you don't get much credit for that work off the ball."

Agreeing with reports that England had changed from a Leicester style to more of a Wasps one, he added: "I think when you've got two strong teams such as Leicester and Wasps in the organisation probably at the start there's a bit of a battle for philosophy of rugby, and I think they've sorted that out and they're playing extremely well."

Jones observed that the two World Cup finalists were drawn heavily from winning clubs, ie Leicester and Wasps, the European Cup finalists, while Natal Sharks and the Blue Bulls were the Super 14 finalists, "and what the World Cup does is exacerbate strengths and weaknesses because of the pressures involved; because it's that final putt for a million pounds in a matchplay."

He was quite content to indulge in the inevitable battery of questions about Jonny Wilkinson - the talismanic English outhalf wasn't present when the Boks cruised their pool meeting, but kicked England to victory in the final four years ago against Jones' Wallabies.

What had he learned from that final defeat? "Not too much," he said, smiling, before adding: "because Jonny is still there, So, he's a bit of a worry." Joking that eight Test defeats in a row had a bigger bearing on him losing his job as Wallabies coach than losing the 2003 final, he scoffed at any notion of revenge.

Whereas Australia played to the limit of their abilities against deserving World Cup winners four years ago, "I think this year South Africa are probably, potentially the best team and if we play well we'll probably get the result, but we've got to play well. But I won't be thinking that makes up for 2003, though I might throw my silver medal away."

Maintaining that Wilkinson was a different sort of player to four years ago, Jones said: "Defensively he's still good, but obviously he's probably not as dominant a player as he was in 2003. The thing about Jonny is what he gives to the England team is just enormous confidence. You can see that guys around him play better when he's there because he has won a World Cup, he still kicks reasonably well, he still kicks a field goal here and there and he's tough, he's a tough player.

"You just saw some of the tackles he made against Australia and against France, so you don't go down that channel easily, and that means you have to go wider and you've seen in today's game that it's harder to go wide because the breakdown then becomes a bit of a lottery."

Indeed, so narrow has the game become at this World Cup that Jones reckons "we might as well close the field down and make it 15 metres wide" which is why, he added, "the influence of the packs and the number 10s" has become more pronounced.

However, the final isn't about shutting Wilkinson down. "He plays at the back end of what goes in front of him and as World Cup finals are won up front the game has probably gone back a couple of decades. We're probably seeing rugby in the '90s now.

"It's about set-piece, it's about field position and it's about scoring points once you get in the opposition's half. So Jonny does that on the back of what his forwards do."

Rather than joining the panicky clarion call for changing the game's laws, Jones maintained the game's style had always ebbed and flowed and there had been some fantastic rugby at this tournament.

"But World Cups are traditionally about winning. You don't get any points for playing beautiful rugby at the World Cup so therefore sides are probably more pragmatic about the way they play, and I don't think that's such a bad thing."

But Jones urged caution against making "knee-jerk" law changes, as is being proposed by the IRB, instead urging everyone from the IRB down to endorse referees' in employing existing laws. "If we do that we've got a brilliant game."