Galloping Greens....Walloping Wallabies
Has a nice ring to it ;)
Wonder how Raelene will enjoy an old fashioned thrashing of her beloved ABs :)
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Galloping Greens....Walloping Wallabies
Has a nice ring to it ;)
Wonder how Raelene will enjoy an old fashioned thrashing of her beloved ABs :)
Reg Roberts has put out a Tweet quoting a press release from NSW Country stating that the NSWRU have told them to rest Will Miller and Jed Holloway to prepare for Super Rugby in five months time. I kid you not.
Where is that circus music again! :shakeshead::dickheads::snorting::joker:Quote:
Originally Posted by Bakkies
Wow, I am sure Jones won't be too happy, this article reeks of RA bias and I am starting to wonder if Wayne Smith is now on the RA payroll. Wouldnt surprise me.
I ask him one question, with all the enormous sums of money being thrown away to keep the Rebels afloat, you believe the ARU/RA made the correct decision because you understand why?
Another one I would love for him to justify is how he can call anyone "honourable" after the senate inquiry, you simply cannot. Especially after they all colluded to save the Rebels by transferring it to the VRU for a $1.
Wayne Smith has gone off the rails and has lost touch with Australian rugby's fan base. I love how he actually accuses Jones of hating woman. Uh oh, playing the sabrina card when Jones has every right to an opinion is down right gutless.
Good luck Wayne, I hope Jones does lay a fire storm down on your ass. I also hope your career goes up in smoke, come back when you start engaging with the real Australian Rugby fans and the grassroots
Quote:
Work with the system, not against
OCTOBER 12, 2018
Wayne Smith
Many years ago, back in the days when journalists were still welcome in the sheds after full-time, I was banned from the Wallabies dressing rooms by the then Australian coach Alan Jones as punishment for something I had written about his Wallabies.
If memory serves, I had suggested that “David Campese has scored more Test tries than he has made Test tackles”. OK, I concede now, that was probably too clever by half but given Campese had scored 64 tries in 101 Tests, I felt at the time this observation accurately summed up his varying contributions in attack and defence. But knowing Jones’ fearsome reputation, I knew there would be ramifications. And there were.
So I know that what I am about to write will probably bring a Jones firestorm down upon my head. So be it. A shame, really, because on so many issues where Australian rugby is concerned, Jones and I are in violent agreement.
I could start by suggesting that over time, we have both expressed dismay and outrage at decisions taken by Rugby Australia, or as it was formerly known, the Australian Rugby Union. Campaigns against former ARU chief executive John O’Neill and the ARU board over the Western Force culling had us both in the trenches, side by side.
The difference was that, in the case of the ARU’s decision to axe the Western Force, I could see the logic behind the board’s actions. I didn’t agree with it but I respected how honourable people with only the good of the game at heart could have arrived at the conclusions they did. So while I called for the resignations of chairman Cameron Clyne and then CEO Bill Pulver to act as a circuit-breaker, I did so reluctantly and with full respect for them as individuals.
It’s the same with Raelene Castle, the woman who has replaced Pulver as chief executive. I couldn’t care less whether she can tell the difference between a ruck and a maul — and just for interest sake, I’ve asked her and she knows. What matters to me is that, as a sports administrator, she makes sound, practical decisions that won’t send rugby broke. Because, as Jones tells us, the game is in desperate financial straits and the CEO has to keep the bottom line constantly in mind.
If she says the Wallabies defence seems deficient, she should not be rubbished by Jones for having an opinion.
There have been reasons to call into question some of the judgments she has made. The decision to lock Michael Hooper into a five-year deal when his continued selection at open side flanker, particularly post-Michael Cheika, is not a given was eyebrow-raising, at very least. But to suggest she should shut up and take orders from Cheika is just a tail-wagging-the-dog mentality.
Any sporting organisation that allows the national coach to set the agenda is doomed. A coach’s focus is the success of the national team, making sure everything is aligned to that cause. He doesn’t have responsibility for the bigger picture. But someone must. Three wins out of the past 11 Tests suggests everything is not proceeding according to plan and Castle, as the person placed in charge of running the sport on a daily basis, is entitled to ask questions.
It will be Castle who will be held to account if the Wallabies implode at the World Cup. She could lose her job; so, too, the board that put her there. Yes, Cheika would go but he’s flagged his departure. If Castle is to be held *accountable, she deserves to have a say.
Perhaps I am reading too much into his words and, if so, I apologise in advance. But it seems to me that when Jones says there are people on the board of Rugby Australia “who know nothing about rugby”, that’s code for saying “they wear a skirt”. No doubt there are male directors whose knowledge of the game he would also dispute but there is a clear and unmistakeable trend in his writing that suggests female members of the board have no right to be there, simply because they are women.
I don’t need to fight Ann Sherry and Pip Marlow’s battles for them. They have proven very capable of defending themselves, as indeed did Sydney Opera House CEO Louise Herron, who refused to buckle when confronted on air by Jones last week.
Considering that the Wallabies logo has been displayed on the sails of the Opera House in the past, I may have had mild sympathy for his cause — although, seriously, a barrier draw for a horse race? But I was appalled by the way Jones bullied her and threatened her job. And he is taking the same line with his interminable attacks on RA’s female board members. Enough already. Move on.
Jones rightly claims that rugby has for too long neglected its grassroots. Such neglect takes time to work its way through the system and it may be that the “top down” approach of past ARU boards is now coming home to roost in the inconsistent performances of the Wallabies. The only way that can be fixed is to start at the bottom again and work long and hard, as a lot of people are already doing.
Instead of setting up an Australian Club Rugby Association, have Jones and his fellow-founders Brett Papworth and Bob Dwyer considered there is another way? Work from within the system. Nominate for positions on the board of NSW or Queensland or Australia. No nominations committee would dare blackball you. There is already an organisation set up to get rugby going nationally. It’s called Rugby Australia. If it’s not working to your satisfaction, make it.
Let’s not forget where the last campaign designed to make Sydney’s Shute Shield the pre-eminent competition in Australia led … to the expulsion of the Force.
And let’s not forget that the National Rugby Championship is on the endangered list. Every other state considers the NRC to be a valuable tool, all save NSW where they can barely scrape together enough quality players to make up the Sydney Rays. Waratahs boss Andrew Hore on Thursday said the NRC was not being sabotaged from within. I suspect he was being diplomatic.
Everything in rugby is interconnected. And everyone is entitled to their opinion. A Grand Slam-winning, Bledisloe Cup-conquering Wallabies coach is certainly entitled to give us his. But, Alan, you are taking us back to the days of that US major who justified the shelling of Ben Tre during the Vietnam War by saying “it became necessary to destroy the town to save it”.
Your enthusiasm is to be marvelled at. Just be sure there is something left standing when you stop.
Spartan there may be connections to the establishment that Wayne has. That aside his recent articles over the past few months have been out of the Spiro Zavos book of spitting and getting drunk before writing bollocks. Comes across as an incoherent chip on the shoulder with a grudge. Wayne didn't build his reputation that way.
I can't find too much wrong with Wayne's article, apart from excusing Clyne & Co as well meaning but bumbling benign dictators. He might be wide of the mark on the possibility of Papworth, Dwyer & Co easily getting on to the board too. IMO he has been the only balanced scribe east of the rabbit proof fence all along.
As for Jones; anyone who thinks this bloke is some kind of white knight should Google for some excerpts of Chris Masters' "Jonestown".
I find the tone of his language towards Raelene Castle disturbing and the way he bullied the lady CEO of The Opera House was even more contemptible than the Kow-towing of the NSW Premier.
Yeah, Smith has both of those things wrong. There is no way those guys could get on the board.Quote:
Originally Posted by shasta
In this particular case, it's probably a good thing. In procedural terms, though, it shows the RA board as a cosy corporate club.
The game is being run into the ground with these time servers and egoists.
True enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by shasta
I thought the most telling line was "Let’s not forget where the last campaign designed to make Sydney’s Shute Shield the pre-eminent competition in Australia led … to the expulsion of the Force."
It was bang on the money. These guys may be big on vision, but it specifically their vision and they are not all all big on one or all of costs, consequences or caring.
Meow.
Meow.
Alison is this first time that Stooke has been quoted in the press after his resignation on the sale fiasco?
Rugby Australia tent doors zipped shut with grassroots outside
ALAN JONES
RADIO BROADCASTER
1 MINUTE AGO OCTOBER 18, 2018
NO COMMENTS
In The Weekend Australian on Saturday, Wayne Smith purported to critique some of what I have said about Australian rugby *administration.
Of course, in typical fashion, he dealt out a few backhanders as well and couldn’t resist referencing the Opera House.
He managed to extrapolate from my persistent and accurate arguing that there are people on the board of Rugby Australia “who know nothing about rugby” that that was because there were women.
READ NEXT
Beaten, beheaded, dismembered
CAMERON STEWART
And so we’re into the misogynist stuff again.
I’m more than happy to conduct a Q&A with all the Rugby Australia board members and I know that it would be easy to prove that they know very little about coaching.
But they’re going to hold *Michael Cheika to account.
How you do that, I don’t know.
I should point out that the article prompted comment, as well, from former board member Geoffrey Stooke, an outstanding West Australian servant of the game.
He corrected many of the so-called “facts” in Smith’s article.
And of the article, Stooke says: “The sale of the Rebels to the VRU was done without formal board approval, despite the board being advised previously that any ‘on-selling’ would require board approval. When this occurred I asked how this could happen without board approval and I was advised they’d found a ‘loophole’. This seemed strange as subsequent information suggests the ARU was directly involved in the transaction … with the Rebels refusing all attempts to ‘depart’ (and this was stated publicly) the only team that the ARU could legally, forcibly remove was the Western Force. This suggests that the so-called ‘evaluation process’ was a sham.”
That’s precisely what I have written in the past. If Smith wants to suggest I should “work within the rugby system”, then may I suggest to him that when he writes about the system, he should make sure he gets it right.
I have written 28 columns for this paper and in all of them I have sought to do two things: point out the problem and volunteer a *solution.
At no point has anyone from Rugby Australia spoken to me.
I was invited to coach the Barbarians last year, not by Rugby Australia. At no time did anyone from Rugby Australia speak to me or our visiting Barbarian guests.
If I might say immodestly, I have coached premiership sides at school level, sub-district level, grade level and national level.
I say that only because I am writing with an inside understanding of what works.
I also referenced last week the formation of the Australian Club Rugby Association. It’s not being set up to take over the running of rugby. It’s to give voice to grassroots rugby in Australia’s rugby* *future.
At present, the grassroots have no voice and no power. This is a major flaw in the structure of rugby in Australia.
Smith wants me to get inside the tent. Wayne, which bloody tent?
You see, there are some so-called rugby journalists who live off the scraps thrown to them by Rugby Australia.
Why would they bite the hand that feeds them and write of the *issues that I’m addressing?
What does it say about an organisation like Rugby Australia when it feeds “exclusive stories” to its “mates”? Does that quarantine them from serious media criticism?
I’m not a journalist. I’m a coach. And I’ve been asked to voice my opinions publicly. I’ve done that for over 30 years. I hope I’m speaking from an informed perspective.
I’ve spoken before about the Australian Schoolboys’ tent. Well, its committee is made up of two delegates from each state and territory, but NSW gets three.
Australian Schools Rugby Union president Bob Wallace is not even at a school and hasn’t been a teacher for years. Neither is the senior vice-president, Damien Barker. Nor are another five committee members.
Many of these people are not even teaching. But they run the Australian Schoolboys like it’s their own personal boys’ club.
There has been no injection of fresh blood in the ASRU committee for years.
Young, talented teacher-coaches and administrators can’t get a look in. The tent is locked and trespassers are not welcome. It should be folded or burnt down.
What about the high-performance tent? Ben Whittaker has a credibility problem.
How can he keep his position as Rugby Australia high-performance manager when his brother, Chris, was appointed as an assistant coach at the Waratahs without the position being advertised? There appeared to be no due process.
How does a young, talented coach get inside the tent when the tent is seemingly locked to all but those with mates on the inside?
And how can you appoint a coach when you know little about coaching?
This is not the first time this has happened. Tim Walsh was appointed the men’s sevens coach without it being publicly advertised.
Were the jobs that are held with the Wallabies by Stephen Lark*ham, Nathan Grey and Simon Raiwalui advertised?
They were appointed to Wallabies coaching positions. Was there due process?
At no stage was I appointed a Wallabies coach without the job being advertised and I can remember some spirited cross-examination from an interview panel comprised of people with scarifying rugby brains.
Now, those appointed to Wallabies positions may well have been the preferred choice of the national coach. But surely there should be a process.
We are having massive defence problems at the moment. Grey was appointed the Wallabies defence coach despite a poor record in his last season at the Waratahs.
Now there’s talk that he’ll become the attack coach and Lark*ham the defence coach.
Well if Whittaker is in charge of high performance, did he challenge any of this?
How do you get an invitation to get inside the high-performance tent? I think the tent needs a spring clean.
What about the Rugby Australia tent? When Andrew Forrest offered to save the Force and plough money into our game, he was turned away from the tent by Cameron Clyne.
Forrest recently offered to revitalise rugby in western Sydney but again was denied access to the tent.
Exactly how does one get invited inside the tent by Rugby Australia?
The game is on its knees and chairman Cameron Clyne and CEO Raelene Castle are too paranoid to trust one of the country’s most generous philanthropists. Successful people such as Forrest don’t offer their assistance every day.
Is Rugby Australia in a position to act this way? It seems to me that those on the board of Rugby Australia behave as if the tent is theirs.
Australian rugby, the real tent, belongs to the people who have invested their lives in the game — those who coach teams, flip burgers, mark lines and wash jerseys.
It doesn’t belong to a bunch of well-paid board members or failed rugby bureaucrats.
And what about the Rugby Australia media tent?
How is it that Rugby Australia staff are also earning a quid commenting on the game?
Surely if they’re paid by Rugby Australia there should be some disclosure that their opinions might not be independent.
People like Rod Kafer are on the payroll of Rugby Australia and the payroll of Fox Sports.
They’re inside two tents at the same time.
Is the game in such bad shape that we need to control the message in order to minimise the damage to our game and the drop in TV ratings?
Perhaps if we didn’t have a controlled message, more people would keep watching.
The rugby public are not mugs.
They know the game because they live and breathe it.
This is another tent that needs cleaning out.
But at day’s end, why would anyone want to get inside any one of the rugby tents?
They’re chock full of failed people seeming to feather their own nests and improve their CVs at the expense of our game.
And at the expense of the people who are the game — the grassroots players, parents, coaches, team managers and bottle-washers.
If we were talking about a Third World country, what would be the word used to describe this closed shop behaviour?
At Rugby Australia they call it corporate governance. I would call it something else.
He has nailed it. Really enjoyed that article, and impressed he has touched on the partial media on RA's payroll and how they control a certain message, almost as if paranoid, which is exactly how it comes across.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bakkies
He has nailed Wayne Smith to a coffin, it's obvious Alan Jones knows alot more about how rugby is run in this country, and not only from a national level, but also from a school boy level, and he comes across as far more credible due to the way he is able to express his knowledge on these topics. Wayne Smith just seemed to make daft comments and accusations eg. RA are honourable, but fail to back it up with any actual facts that arent just RA/Clyne spin. Hopefully he can stray Wayne Smith to do the honourable thing and start reporting the actual facts about the state of the game before he runs out of rugby fans to read his articles because right now he seems to read like he is on Rugby Australia's payroll.
I doubt this will see the light of day on The Roar or Fox. Hitting too close to the bone!
I am waiting for the apologist tripe to come out of Geoff Parkes' keyboard in response to this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Transiting
Wayne Smith needed a reality check. I’ve been disappointed with is articles over the last 2 or 3 months. Be interested in who within the RA administration want Chieka gone.
One good comment on the Alan Jones article was the suggestion we push the Sporting Commishion to shake the RA tree.
Senator Reynolds put that in as a recommendation like ASIC they have done nothing. Fits in with their do nothing behaviour over addressing Tennis, Swimming and Soccer.Quote:
Originally Posted by UAUdiver1959
Consistency IS what you want out of sporting administration.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bakkies