The All Blacks will no longer have to brace themselves for withering assessments from their fiercest critic.
While Rattue, the astute and entertaining columnist for The New Zealand Herald for 35 years, generally had a considered point to even his harshest barbs, Jones — a titan of rugby journalism, let me be clear — appeared to prefer the froth-at-mouth approach.
He loathed the haka, he thought New Zealand rugby fans were blinkered, and he never met an All Black he did not think was capable of acts of extreme thuggery.
The man could write, though, and he leaves a giant gap after retiring as 42 years as the rugby correspondent for the Sunday Times in England.
Jones became one of the foremost voices on rugby over a career that included covering every World Cup, reporting on more Lions tours (nine) than any other tournament, and attending over 300 international games.
He was twice named UK sports correspondent of the year, and his Endless Winter (1993) is considered among the finest books on rugby.
Jones also, as he revealed in his farewell piece in the Times, was once voted fourth in a poll of New Zealand’s most hated people.
"Above me were Dominique Prieur and Alain Mafart, two French intelligence agents who blew up the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour."
If winding up Kiwis was a degree, Jones held a masters.
He famously referred to New Zealand as rugby’s less-civilised nation, regularly scoffed at Super Rugby and the Rugby Championship, and once had the temerity to refer to the great Dan Carter as a "decent" first five.
Jones was particularly adept at bugging former All Blacks coach Steve Hansen.
After a game during the All Blacks end-of-year tour in 2005, Hansen told British journalists he was looking forward to reading what Stephen Jones has to say.
Jones wrote the All Blacks had stooped to a "craven barrage of cheating" against his beloved England at Twickenham, and said Hansen had belittled much-hyped English prop Andrew Sheridan.
Hansen, an assistant to Graham Henry at that time, took issue.
"Is it all right for Stephen Jones to belittle people? He's pretty good at it," Hansen said.
"Once again, Stephen Jones is struggling to write anything positive, and at the risk of calling him a name ... whatever he writes doesn't particularly bother me."
Earlier in 2005, Jones had been given a gift from his anti-All Blacks gods when Tana Umaga and Keven Mealamu tipped up Brian O'Driscoll in an ugly clear-out that ruled the great Irishman out of the Lions tour.
"It looked horrendous enough at the time. Then a different camera angle appeared, which showed that it could have killed O'Driscoll."
In 2019, Jones railed against New Zealand Rugby’s bid to get more income from tests played away from home.
"The arrogance of New Zealand [seen as the biggest draw in the game, by themselves] tends to dissipate as they demand a half-share of every away gate, trying to hide the fact that their gates are feeble because they have never built a stadium; visitors would get half of nothing."
The rugby writer also regularly banged on about the All Blacks benefiting from players who had moved to New Zealand from the Pacific Islands.
It may be apocryphal but there is a story circulating that Jones once wrote of Mealamu being "poached from the island of Tokoroa".
Jones was at his best (or worst) when railing at the use of the haka by the All Blacks before tests.
He called for it to be banned, he described it as bogus, and he said the All Blacks had become impossibly pompous and precious about it.
In 2019, Jones delivered his most haka-centric column yet when he argued the haka was performed to satisfy sponsors and television audiences, and felt it was time the rugby world moved on from the traditional challenge.
"The haka has long been partly bonkers," Jones wrote in his column for The Times.
"It is now interminable; it takes up ages with the other team freezing. It is now a means of rank bullying on and off the field, and has become a posing strut rather than a tribute to the Maori heritage in New Zealand."
At least Jones signed off with a couple of highlights from the land he appeared to hate.
He named four All Blacks — winger Jonah Lomu, midfielder Frank Bunce and flankers Alan Whetton and Michael Jones — in a greatest XV of players he had seen during his career.
He also mentioned a southern city when he talked about how far his journalism career had taken him.
"I have covered matches in Invercargill, deep in New Zealand, South Island, next stop the South Pole."
■ Hayden Meikle met Stephen Jones once. Like many New Zealanders, Meikle is blocked by Jones on X (formerly Twitter).
