Robbie Deans’s role as coach through to the British and Irish Lions in 2013 would appear — for better or worse — a done deal. But on the eve of the quarter-final in Wellington, a source in the Australian media relayed to me a conversation with John O’Neill in which the ARU CEO responded to such assertions before the world cup with the words ‘there are clauses’.
We know that a semi-final appearance was seen by the board as a ‘pass mark’ in this campaign, meaning we were one Justin Bieber missed goal from a ‘fail’ and presumably the activation of said break clause. But even with O’Connor’s kick splitting the posts, is the performance of the Wallabies in this World Cup really a ‘pass’?
The real goal
The ultimate goal for John O’Neill isn’t the World Cup. The real goal is to leave the ARU with a war chest following the Lions tour in 2013. If he does this, John can point to financial success in each of his tenures as CEO at the ARU and FIA. The World Cup this year actually means less revenue for the ARU. Its only pecuniary value would be generating interest in the code, should we have won the whole thing.
Which we won’t. To wring top dollar out of the Lions tour, we’d need a champion Wallabies team that’s performing, that’s worth televising, going to watch, buying the merchandise and (for fans from the home countries) travelling around the globe to watch their team challenge.
Regarding the Wallabies in this World Cup, could ex-banker and hard decision maker O’Neill possibly say they the Wallabies have performed in a way that will encourage fans and marginal supporters to do those things? Resoundingly, no.
‘As this team stands it will be dismantled by a Lions pack…’
Dig below the semi-final appearance and you have a Top 3 team that couldn’t have performed much worse — coming second in their pool, scoring a solitary try in the knock out stages and squeaking through a quarter-final in which quite literally the only thing that worked for them was their tackling, and David Pocock. Come the semi, they were not even within touching distance of New Zealand, the benchmark, being once again routed at Eden Park.
As this team stands it will be dismantled by a Lions pack, and as the pressure comes on, the superstars in the backline will implode in a tight Test series. There will be no razzle or dazzle until it is too late to win. And again, their coach will deflect the blame onto a ‘young and inconsistent group, still forming and learning’.
‘…there are two pieces of incontrovertible evidence arguing for change at the top.’
But what John must now know is that this is clearly not the case. There is no more time for development, and the time for delivery is fast passing too. The Crusaderville investment hasn’t returned; it has failed.
Even if you can convince yourself that getting hammered by the All Blacks in a semi-final is some sort of achievement (if you can’t even push them close, how can you expect to win the Cup?) there are two pieces of incontrovertible evidence arguing for change at the top.
The first is the inability of the Wallabies to play to a conceived game plan. The driver of the Reds’ success this year was simple but specific tactics for oppositions implemented over base structures. When was the last time you could discern such specificity for the Wallabies? The wins in Brisbane and Bloemfontein came simply from doing the basics with intensity. The losses returned as soon as that stopped happening.
‘There is just one person responsible for the lack of these critical plans and structures.’
As an example, Limerick’s village idiot could see the importance of the Australia-versus-Ireland pool game this RWC. The ex-NSW and now Ireland defensive coach Les Kiss had been talking on the Ruggamatrix podcast about their preparation for it and the tactics they’d employ every week since the draw was announced — yet the Wallabies were totally bamboozled.
At G&GR we’ve heard through returning Wallaby players that there typically is a Wallaby game plan, but it’s never simple, specific nor communicated clearly. In the space of a week we’ve also heard Reds defensive coach Matt Taylor on G&GR, and ex-Wallabies coach Eddie Jones on Ruggamatrix, espouse the importance of structure for Quade Cooper to be able to thrive off. There is just one person responsible for the lack of these critical plans and structures.
The second damning piece of evidence, and one that Big John must be painfully aware of, is the schemozzle of a coaching team that is bursting at the seams in terms of size and complexity.
When Robbie turned up he only needed one assistant, apparently — Jim Williams — and then seemingly as an afterthought, Richard Graham as well. If you got the feeling that Robbie never believed he really needed help, you might have been right. (The reason he reportedly missed out to Graham Henry on the All Blacks gig was because in his presentation he hadn’t got round to thinking about assistant coaches; Henry had Hansen and Smith lined up, and the outcome is history.)
Apparently we didn’t need a kicking, scrum or defensive coach, despite the Wallabies’ obvious deficiencies in those areas – Dingo would somehow fix it. Fast-forward a few season reviews and we’ve now got the lot and even more.
Before this international season, the G&GR podcast was dismayed to discover that, despite the breakdown being the most important facet of the game, there was no one person in charge of running this for the Wallabies. It was kinda ‘everyone’s responsibility’.
‘Robbie has lost his boss’s confidence and the set-up is patently not delivering.’
Just a few months on and we now have David Nucifora (presumably ignoring his day job as development coordinator) focussing purely on the breakdown. Meanwhile, Jim Williams now just focusses on lineouts and restarts; sorry Jim, but both are regularly a shambles still.
The presence of a personality like Nucifora in the coaches’ box, and the admission by O’Neill that it’s necessary to have him there, speaks volumes. Robbie has lost his boss’s confidence and the set-up is patently not delivering. The decision has already been made, just not yet acted upon. Suggestions by the media that the addition of Ewen McKenzie as yet another chief into this pow-wow are patently ridiculous and just serve to further underline the problem.
I still see a lot of good in what Robbie Deans has done, and I don’t doubt that his successors will benefit from it. However, these are just pieces of the jigsaw and not the full picture that any leader hoping to lift the greatest prizes in their sport must have. You can say a lot about Big John, but you must concede that he has the ultimate survivor’s instinct. It is surely impossible that he can’t see the writing on the wall.
Who needs clauses?
