Pacific Island Rugby boss Charlie Charters on Wednesday described Eddie Jones as out of touch and unqualified to comment on island rugby after the Wallabies coach had labelled their tour as a "revenue-raising exercise".
Charters, who heads up the island alliance that has brought together Fiji, Samoa and Tonga for their inaugural test in Adelaide this Saturday, was furious Jones had discounted the Islanders' long-term claims before they'd played a test.
"To be frank with you, I don't think he knows enough about what's happening in the economy class of world rugby to be able to talk about the serious structural issues that we're facing," Charters said of Jones.
"Those structural issues are showing no signs of going away.
"In fact, they're showing every sign of increasing and accelerating the gap between the haves and the have-nots."
Jones said on Tuesday not to get "too excited about what this team would become", suggesting the Pacific Islanders should not be part of an expanded Super 12 competition - something they were pushing for in 2006.
He said he hoped the individual countries would get stronger, believing the British Lions-style tour being undertaken by the Islanders - who also play South Africa and New Zealand - should be shortlived.
But Charters said there was a drain of talent from the Pacific island nations towards Australia and New Zealand, and the combined team was simply an attempt to break that pattern.
"If Eddie has got a plan that is going to stabilise rugby in the Pacific and not have us basically as a huge kind of potting shed for Australian and New Zealand national teams, that's great, and he should talk to us about that and hopefully sell it into the ARU, because we are all ears," he said.
Jones attempted to smooth the waters, saying he was more concerned about the individual test status of each island nation than anything else.
"The Pacific Islands group is there to raise revenue for Fiji, Tonga and Samoa and we're delighted to be playing against them to help those three countries' causes," Jones said.
"I didn't say it was bad. I said it was very good.
"But we've got to make sure we keep the sovereignty of those three countries."
