A great buy.

That’s the obvious response to the Stormers doing a deal with Eddie Jones.

They’ve always been a team high on talent and ambition. Now they have the right bloke to harness all that.

The measure of any coach isn’t how well he does with a top team. It’s how he does with a middling team, like Nick Mallett with False Bay back in the day or Heyneke Meyer with South Western Districts. If you can produce with that lot, you’ve got coaching cred. Both did.

Jones sprinkled his stardust on the Brumbies. When he arrived in Canberra they were a motley bunch of part-timers. He turned them into buccaneers, playing unorthodox, lively rugby. They smashed a lot of teams along the way.

Of course he knows SA rugby well. Jake White had the foresight to hire him as an assistant for the 2007 World Cup. It’s an open secret that when things threatened to go into meltdown, Jones was the one to keep it all together. He was the calm, steadying influence and was critical in helping the Boks keep their heads.

Even now, squad members talk him up.

Jones is one of the great coaches of the modern age, a bon vivant and raconteur. I recall once driving with him through London after interviewing him at Saracens. All he wanted to do was talk about the game. He did so with left-of-field thinking, offering remarkable insights. He sees the game different to most and it’s why his teams play extravagantly.

Given the Stormers’ arsenal, which almost certainly will include Johan Goosen at flyhalf, the potential is huge.

The Stormers won’t like him during pre-season, though. He’s a disciplinarian and a stickler for super-fitness. Anyone not pulling their weight will get the hairdryer treatment. He’s going to lash them hard.

I gather he’s going to do some pretty radical things with specialists and experts, bringing in hired guns from time to time. Some include the very best in the game. Good.

The only thing that might hobble Jones is the ever-present politics of the game in the Western Cape. It’s like nowhere else and it is insidious.

He would do well to round up some of the seniors, men like Schalk Burger and Juan de Jongh, and have a quiet beer and a chat. Get to know the lie of the land.

But Jones is a smart guy and the odds of him succeeding are good.

The Stormers, having bought well in the off-season, have talent to burn. And now they’ve got the coach to deliver the goods.

I’m betting they win it all in 2016.