Jones was due to leave the Premiership club at the end of the season but has cut his ties earlier than planned © Getty Images

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Tournaments/Tours: Guinness Premiership

Teams: England | Saracens

Eddie Jones has stepped down as Saracens director of rugby with immediate effect, the club announced this afternoon.

Coaching co-ordinator Richard Graham will take charge of the Guinness Premiership club until the end of the season. Jones, the former Australia head coach, had originally been due to leave the club in the summer. He had lined up a two-year coaching post with Japanese club Suntory.

No explanation for Jones' immediate departure was provided by the club but he is known to be unhappy with the current management regime at Saracens.

Jones officially cited "personal reasons" when announcing he would be leaving Saracens at the end of the season, making way for Brendan Venter to take over as director of rugby. Only this morning, when confirming his deal with Suntory, Jones was quoted on the Saracens official website as saying, "Obviously, my complete focus for the rest of the English season is with Saracens.

"We have six games remaining in the Guinness Premiership and a home European quarter-final as we look to finish the season strongly in both competitions."

Jones has been angered by the club's decision to inform 15 players, including seasoned internationals like Chris Jack and club stalwarts like Kevin Sorrell, they would be released at the end of the season.

"I've never seen anything like it. Some of the guys have been in tears all week, and yesterday there was a meeting with lawyers," Jones said at the time. "I'm 100% disappointed. I brought my family here and I wanted to build a strong club, the best in Europe.

"There's never a right time for this. The impact of culling so many of your best players has a massive effect on the club. But I've told the players I am fighting their corner, and my job is to leave the club in the best shape I can. I guarantee I will."

The Professional Rugby Players' Association is seeking assurances from Saracens that all payments and benefits due to 12 players who were still under contract will be met in full.

Graham is also due to leave Saracens at the end of the season to take up the post of skills coach with the Australia.

Saracens is at the centre of a so-called "South Africanisation" process, which is clearly not to everyone's taste. A firm with links to Western Province and the Blue Bulls recently made a £6million investment in Saracens in a bid to turn the club into a "home away from home" for Africans.

It has been widely reported that Saracens will recruit Currie Cup and Super 14 players to fill the vacancies created by the released players. A Stormers spokesman recently confirmed some of the franchise's players, including Springbok flanker Schalk Burger and centre Jean de Villiers, had been approached by Saracens.

South African Investments Ltd chief executive Brand de Villiers recently told South African newspaper Sondag, "There is a big South African rugby market in Britain. We hope that Saracens will become a home away from home for South Africans living in Britain."

Saracens chief executive Ed Griffiths told a recent fans forum the club was keen to attract new supporters from the large South African community in London. A possible move from Watford to Fulham's Craven Cottage is not off the table.

Nigel Wray, who has remained as club chairman following the South African cash investment, this week denied the club was turning its back on English rugby.

"I am not stepping away from this club and remain as chairman. The new investors are also lovers of rugby and this is joint venture," said Wray, who has spent more than £15m of his own money keeping Sarries going over the past 14 years.

He added the club could not continue to lose £2million a year. "We cannot survive on our current attendances and that is why we are prepared to play at other venues - we have a lease on Vicarage Road until 2011," Wray told the Evening Standard this week.

"We have an opportunity to attract South African rugby fans and will be signing a few more outstanding South African players. However, we are also investing heavily in the continued production of English players.

"I agree that our PR has not been great over the players leaving but we have been honest with them and will honour all contracts if they do not find new clubs. The club are prepared for short-term pain for long-term gain. Maybe I have been an idiot in the past and that's why we haven't done very well but we have no alternative but to take this action."