0
![Not allowed!](images/buttons/up_dis.png)
Missed opportunities on Rugby Australia boardALAN JONES
Follow @AlanJones
12:45AM MARCH 13, 2020168 COMMENTS
I wrote many months ago in relation to Rugby Australia that, just when you thought it could not possibly get worse, it does.
The correspondence from last week ought to alarm everyone at Rugby Australia. But, to be blunt, Rugby Australia does not seem to care.
This must affect our players, who don’t want to be identified with an organisation that is plainly on the nose.
The second-half performance by NSW last week was alarming for the players and immensely dispiriting to the supporters. Remember, this is a team full of Australian representatives.
But behind our very good players and our not-so-good imported coaches is an administration that continues to spiral out of control.
READ MORE:Broadcast folly could be last straw|We need a new chair, new board that has ‘konjo’|An opportunity to improve our game|The good, the bad and the downright dumb
You may have read in the last week the so-called arrangements that were being mobilised to bring hope, competence and direction to a new Rugby Australia board.
There is a nominations committee. I don’t approve of that. I think anyone should be able to be nominated and seconded for a position on the board to administer the game. And the members should then choose. It happens elsewhere. Why not here?
Instead, an outfit appointed by Rugby Australia becomes the gatekeeper, allowing people through and shutting people out.
You don’t need to have a fertile imagination to know who they will let through.
Notwithstanding these concerns, only a week ago it appeared the nominations committee, and the Super Rugby chairmen, had agreed on a list of six people to be recommended to Rugby Australia for board positions.
One of the six was David Mortimer, a man of significant corporate and rugby administrative credentials. He has presided over successful change at Sydney University.
It is also clear Mortimer is not the kind of person who would accept the job in order to just improve his CV and secure the best seats at the next rugby Test.
So having gone through this comprehensive process, the board of Rugby Australia did not accept the nominations, at least not that of Mortimer. Obviously, his appointment would not suit Raelene Castle, among others.
Mortimer would be too hard-nosed for this lot; and it was clear that a Mortimer succession to the chairmanship would embrace significant change that a Neanderthal administration could not accommodate.
Cameron Clyne had by this time vacated, all too late, the chairmanship, to be replaced by the former gifted Wallaby Paul McLean. But McLean has been on the board, in various capacities, for 16 years.
Without diminishing his contribution as a player, he has been part of the administration that has presided over the disintegration of our game.
He gave every impression, nonetheless, that his “chairmanship” would be “temporary”, as it should be.
But while the nominated five were acceptable to the board, and many of them have merit, Mortimer was rejected.
The subtle hand of McLean and his acolytes is all over this. And while the Super Rugby chairmen had approved the nominated six, they weren’t, to my knowledge, consulted about the rejection of Mortimer.
The result is that three out of the remaining five are being recommended for vacant board positions, but there is no chairman. Just as Clyne had to go, McLean should never succeed him.
Where to from here? My understanding is Hamish McLennan may be approached as the new chairman. McLennan has a fine corporate record.
The broadcasting rights for rugby are a big issue. It was the same McLennan who negotiated the Big Bash cricket rights for Channel 10 when he was executive chairman of the network.
He knows his sport and his rugby. He is also chairman of REA Group, a $12bn global online real estate advertising company. He is a non-executive director of the $65bn Magellan Financial Group. But, are the broadcasting rights to be decided by the existing regime?
McLennan is not the kind of person who is going to accept being asked to preside over someone else’s rubbish.
What chairman, worth two bob, would be prepared to take the job, inherit a board over which he has no say and a broadcasting deal which is disadvantageous to the body he is about to head?
The rejection of Mortimer is for the same qualities that McLennan would bring to the table.
NSW opposed Mortimer’s rejection. But there was no debate about it. Others fell into line.
There is one way out of this. These people are “nominations”. The membership at the AGM should reject them. NSW should lead the charge.
If McLennan were to come on board, there is no doubt that Fox Sports would come back to the table. But this is part of the dysfunctional and discredited behaviour of the current administration.
What was acceptable and approved seven days ago was then, without explanation, unwound.
It is worse than that. What other people couldn’t get a guernsey? One of them was the West Australian Geoff Stooke, with an extraordinary record of service to the game but, obviously, too much for the existing mob to digest. While there is a nominations committee, its constitutional obligations don’t involve any compulsory criteria about gender or previous playing proficiency.
But it does require the committee to “place emphasis on ensuring the best cultural fit for the board, especially with respect to ensuring an appropriate level of representation by past elite players with strong skills and competencies in other relevant areas.”
There is no constitutional requirement to replace a retiring Wallaby with another Wallaby.
But then, given previous failures by Clyne and Castle et al, they most probably haven’t read the constitution or the nominations committee charter.
Where are the grassroots represented? Or, the non-heartland member unions?
The current board has seven directors from Sydney and two from Brisbane and it’s called “Rugby Australia”.
Is there a further agenda here? Does McLean seek to be elected, for what is meant to be a three-year term and then resign after a few months?
His replacement would then be appointed by the board, not by voting members because it is then a casual vacancy.
There is, no doubt, a Jeremy Corbyn element to all this. Corbyn tells the British Labour Party that while he will surrender his leadership, he will still have his own Labour Party ratbags holding the influential positions in the party.
So it does seem with Rugby Australia. Clyne is the retiring chairman; Brett Godfrey is a proposed board member; Mark L’Huillier is on the nominations committee.
Is it true they all played for Harlequins in Melbourne, around the same time?
The game is a mess, the results are a mess, the appointment of coaches is a mess, the broadcasting rights issue is a mess.
There must be many in the game who would feel that this is the last straw. Perhaps rugby, its culture and its values don’t matter much anymore.
I note Peter Wiggs has been nominated for a position on the board. But, isn’t he a tragic North Sydney rugby league fan?
Nothing wrong with that, but you would be hard pushed to argue he was a genuine rugby bloke. As I understand it, he was part of a consortium that tried to buy the Titans NRL licence a few years ago.
He certainly has done well in a commercial sense; but is he the man to navigate a new media world and land a good broadcast deal for Australian rugby?
It was Albert Einstein who said: “Try not to be a man of success, but rather a man of value.”
Bart Campbell is stepping down as chairman of the Melbourne Storm. Now there is a track record. The Storm have been the benchmark team on the paddock in the NRL, and they have been just as impressive in the board room.
Under Campbell’s chairmanship, they have grown their membership from 14,000 to 30,000. They have grown their television audience from 11 million viewers a season to 22 million a season. Their average home crowd is now 18,500.
It’s staggering that Campbell could get the Storm thriving in an AFL city. Einstein would have been impressed.
Campbell has added a lot of value to the Storm and has been instrumental in their financial success.
Rugby Australia clearly has no Bart Campbell. Mortimer and McLennan would have provided some decisive and intelligent thinking to solve the challenges facing our game.
One is gone, and the other may be too smart to get involved.
How extraordinary that the biggest challenge we face is financial. In the modern game, if that can’t be addressed, all else goes under.
So, while the administration of Rugby Australia flaps and flounders, the billionaire Andrew Forrest launches his Global Rapid Rugby competition this weekend. This is the bloke who was shown the door by Rugby Australia.
His teams are all based in the Asia-Pacific region and are playing for prizemoney of $1 million.
Global Rapid Rugby reminds us that Rugby Australia, under the chairmanship of Clyne, threw our West Australian rugby brothers under the bus.
There is nothing to suggest that what has transpired in the last week, which rugby fans thought would transition us to a better future, is likely to approximate the kind of success our game deserves.
But then, it is the old axiom — if you don’t know where you’re going, it most probably doesn’t matter what route you take.
'I may be a Senator but I am not stupid'
https://omny.fm/shows/the-alan-jones-breakfast-show/cameron-clyne
Link to Senate Report http://www.aph.gov.au/senate_ca
https://www.change.org/p/rugby-australia-petition-for-cameron-clyne-to-resign-as-chairman-of-the-rugby-australia-board
Thanks 😊
Not necessarily. Players have left in their droves and hasn’t brought any success. Still can’t attract a major sponsor in a major market they were so do desperate to keep. Melbourne prided itself on not being Sydney by not being the centre of the universe, fight of the underdog so we do better of them and showing that you can be successful outside of Sydney.
The Rebels have shown none of that and board appointments smack of Sydney entitlement and underachievement.
They felt entitled to a Super Rugby side due to market size and political sway. Force out did them with a community and media driven bid.
If Melbourne was done the right way and at the right time things would be a lot different.
Australian Rugby has a history of being shown up by those under the radar and it is being proven again. NSW didn’t like being flogged 44-23 by the ACT in 95. ACT had beaten Northern Transvaal and Ireland in that period. NSW Country have produced numerous Wallabies. Sydney beat the ABs in 92. Force are doing the same now and not many knew about WA club Rugby scene in 2005 when the licence was won.
CORRECTION:
I posted earlier that NRL and AFL are paid weekly. IIRC that's what V'Landys inferred at his presser. It seems they are quarterly payments in advance, which makes more sense. Next drip feed is on 1 April. You can bet they'll be desperate to go at least that long.
"The main difference between playing League and Union is that now I get my hangovers on Monday instead of Sunday - Tom David
NRL will as their money supply is not as strong. AFL have a disadvantage as the T20 World Cup is still scheduled for October and Cricket needs the grounds. NRL Final is due to be held at the SCG but they could move it Suncorp which has a similar capacity.
More of a discussion for the COVID thread rather than having a pop at the peanuts running Vic Rugby.