A makeover of someone else’s comment .... I’ve seen smarter boards at Bunnings .
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A makeover of someone else’s comment .... I’ve seen smarter boards at Bunnings .
Alan's back and I see that Growden is back at the SMH putting the boot in to the RA
New season, old problems
FEBRUARY 14, 2019
12:00AM February 15, 2019
Comments
There’s an axiom often cited about Australian television: you don’t have 10 years of television; you just have one year, 10 times. And so it seems with rugby.
We could talk about the past five years of Australian rugby under current and replaced administrations, but we’ve just had one year, five times.
Galatians VI reminds us, “as you sow, so shall you reap”. There are countless examples.
But, could there be a greater metaphor of the unaddressed problems in Australian rugby than the fact that the brilliant 15-year-old schoolboy rugby player Joseph Suaalii has already signed with South Sydney rugby league club?
Reports tell me he is a phenomenal talent. One schoolboy coach told me he virtually beat his team on his own.
But Rugby Australia CEO Raelene Castle was too busy trying to look and sound important, talking up Augustin Pichot’s World League concept, while this brilliant schoolboy was voting with his feet. He obviously doesn’t like what Australian rugby has become.
On the coaching front, we sack the assistant coach Stephen Larkham yet he still stays in the “system” in a coaching advisory role and is rumoured to be the next Australian coach.
And we had to suffer yet again the tortured language of Castle, who sought to explain Larkham’s sacking in this convoluted way: “You need challenge and differences of opinions to make sure that with the final outcome you’re growing and developing it.
“But ultimately they didn’t think the core elements of attack were aligned and they believed, or Michael (Cheika) believed, it was the right thing for Stephen to move on.”
Got it?
That’s the boss of Australian rugby.
Anyone ever thought of advertising the job?
Then the New Zealander coaching the Waratahs has had his contract extended before a ball has been kicked in 2019.
His coaching win rate in three seasons with the Waratahs is 46 per cent!
How do you get these jobs?
With all the money being spent and the salaries being paid, surely we can expect sustained success.
The All Blacks are not unbeatable. Ireland proved that. But the All Blacks exude success.
Melbourne Storm keep doing it in rugby league. It’s called “culture”. It’s an overused word, but it means values and behaviour. Do you value hard work? Do you value honesty? Do you value success?
And if you do, and if you’re honest, you could not argue other than the fact that the administration of our game has failed to deliver; and that crowds, the turnstiles, the advertising, the television audiences and young 15-year-olds like Suaalii, are an emphatic confirmation of failure.
Yet those who have presided over that failure continue in the game with great salaries and the best seats in the house. Culture starts at the top.
Is it mere coincidence that in the wake of the banking royal commission the ARU chairman, Cameron Clyne, struggles to build a strong culture in rugby?
He was the CEO of NAB from 2009 to 2014. We’ve seen where his successors, Andrew Thorburn and Ken Henry, finished up.
A microscope has been put over that banking culture by the royal commission, and it’s been found wanting. Who is putting the microscope over the ARU?
There is a simple chant which applies to these things: “Look at the scoreboard.”
Every item on rugby’s scoreboard is on the nose. Crowds, retention of your best players, television audiences, advertising revenue, sponsors and, of course, the end result of all of that, international non-results, be they in Super Rugby, 15s or sevens.
The question has to be asked again. Do Clyne and his ilk have the cultural compass to lead Australian rugby?
Australian rugby is floundering against the rest of the world. We are no longer feared.
But as you sow, so shall you reap. Rugby Australia allegedly reviewed its coaching structure over the Christmas period.
Did the chairman take ownership and show some leadership through a tricky process?
When Larkham was removed, Castle made it clear that it was Michael Cheika’s call.
And she then gave Larkham an opportunity to hit back at Cheika in the same press release.
Larkham said: “Ultimately Michael is responsible for the performance of the team. We have differences in attacking strategy and overall game philosophy. We couldn’t agree on these key points. And it is in the best interests of the team that they receive a clear and consistent message from their coaches.”
It’s understandable that Larkham, a man of pride and honour, would want to have a swing on the way out the door. But it is not fair to the coach or the team for this to be aired.
Clyne should have managed this. Or Castle. They didn’t. Did they not have the guts?
Surely if Cheika wanted a coaching change, it had to be signed off by the chairman.
In my day, as coach, the board would have laughed at me if I’d told them who the coaching “team” should be. But then, there was no “team”. There was an assistant, a doctor and me.
We seemed to do all right. We were unpaid. And our jobs were advertised.
How is it possible to draw any conclusion other than the fact that Clyne and Castle have no clue on leadership or providing a positive thriving environment for the organisation?
Until there is urgent change at the top, it doesn’t matter what Scott Johnson or Cheika do, long-term success can’t be achieved without a strong culture at headquarters.
I say again, it’s time for a big broom in the boardroom and in the executive office.
Clyne and Castle have no track record of success.
They failed to create a positive winning culture in their previous lives. How are they going to create one now?
Fixing the rugby problem will become easy once the organisation has some strong leaders who live the values of the game. The team is an extension of the organisation. It is OK for Clyne and Castle. They’ll move on to goodness knows where.
But for the rest of us, who love our game and our Wallabies, we have to live with the results of gutless decisions made by leaders who don’t know how to lead.
It is an age-old problem and Galatians VI still applies. We’ll never reap the good things of rugby until our leaders learn how to sow.
Alan Jones is a former coach of the Wallabies and hosts The Alan Jones Breakfast Show on 2GB and the Macquarie radio network and is host of Jones & Co on Sky News at 8pm on Tuesdays
Not only is the Pie Eater back; it seems he's got his old gig back as "Chief Rugby Correspondent".
He's opened with lobbing a good few hand grenades at Moore Park........
Over the Christmas break, notable Australian sporting identities were approached by Rugby Australia powerbrokers asking whether they would be interested in taking over as RA chairman. They were even asked what would be required to convince them to run. Those asking the questions have enormous sway in the running of Australian rugby. One of those approached had the inquirers back-pedalling when he told them the only way he would even contemplate being chairman was if the whole RA board was sacked, and they ‘started from scratch’.
Clyne has been widely criticised for low-key leadership, near invisible direction and a dreadful media persona. His 45-second, say-nothing press conference in December when the RA board met to decide Cheika’s future was easily the most embarrassing Rugby Australia media moment of recent years. (And there are plenty of RA media howlers to choose from.)
That would be on just about every issue other than the knifing of Rugby in WA.
(Clyne) would be genuinely shocked if he knew the identities of those wanting him out of Fort Fumble. The campaign’s codename is: ‘Operation Patsy.’
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-u...14-p50xxa.html
Do we dare hope that Clyne will finally get his arse kicked?
QUOTE=valzc;464422]Do we dare hope that Clyne will finally get his arse kicked?[/QUOTE]
That would be nice but don’t hold your breath!
I’m sick of reading about it. Nothing is going to change so they should write about something else.
The problem is that it will go back to yes men and women writing fluff propaganda and not bringing the likes of uncle Cam to account.
From reading Growden’s twitter account he has got more ammo to unleash.
I see Sam Phillips is now penning articles for the SMH maybe we will see if he has ability as a journalist.
It's frustrating, but there ARE people in the "Heartlands" who have always had the power to do something about the dilettante-a-thon that the board of RA has become. That has been thwarted by rampant self interest so far. But just maybe they have finally decided to act at the eleventh hour. Or not.
I have lost all faith in anyone to do anything. Clyne and North and the rest of the cabal are gold medalists in protectionism. Nothing and no-one will succeed in getting rid of them. They could commit mass murder and would still find a way of not being charged let alone convicted.
He even dodged the royal commission....and lied his way through TWO Senate Inquiries
Time to move on folks.