No, JON shouldn't be judged by Deans's success. But he should be judged by crowd figures, TV revenue, etc, and we have done very very badly there. The Super14 has suffered a huge downturn in attendances in Australia, and JON has done a good job of covering that up. We could also point to the failure of the ELVs as something JON was involved with. On the other hand, the restructure of the S15 was all JON, and I think he's done very very well. I'd be offering him to stay on for less money - like all the players - to reflect the financial downturn in Australian rugby.
Scarf the pretty: excellent, and very fair, points IMO as an overall JO'N assessment. (Remember though that the general ARU income declines you rightly highlight are in part correlated with the Wallabies continuing, dangerous decline as an excitement and winning machine.)
The S14 decline is almost wholly due to the unenticing style of rugby being (generally) played, and, over many years now, only the Tahs breaking through into the final 4, or 2. The Reds phenomenal 2010 upsurge of income/gate numbers highlights what the Aus fans respond to. It's not rocket science. But it was the only place where the gate grew from 09 to 10.
I would add to your list:
- From mid 2007 (JO'N return), the ARU should not have permitted the QRU to hurtle headlong into de facto bankruptcy in late 2009; let alone the major cost to the ARU in scarce cash of this bail-out, QLD rugby was slowly but surely dying to this danger point, and its viability is essential to the code in Australia;
- the ARU is making a similar error of hands-off complacency wrt the ACT RU and NSW RUs - these S14's gates are in worrying decline, the bad omens are there, their boards are introverted and self-preserving, and, I would argue, their managements and coaches need a clean-out a la the QRU to conduct a revitalisation of the code (and game style) in these key states;
- agree with you generally re RD and JO'N links, but I'd be just a bit tougher in that IMO it was near obvious that something, somewhere was wrong with the coaching set-up in late 2009 post-Scotland and JO'N should have insisted that the Assistants were ousted and upgraded, and the RD ceased trying to be the all-knowing 'master coach' and started recognising he needed a serious Aus version of The Cartel ie, more seasoned, specialist, in depth coaching resources under him, and ones he should listen more to;
- not enough real innovation to drive up income and marketable game products. Yes, I like the new S15! And Macqueen back at the new Rebels etc. But I have advocated elsewhere that, for example, an annual 3-game rugby State of Origin is just a no-brainer to (a) make truckloads of $s that the game badly needs and (b) excite old and new fan engagement ditto. We need some radical new ideas and game concepts, the calendar is getting stale.
Fundamentally, and I keep saying this to the (understandable) fans of the old ARC - what the ARU urgently needs today are sources of new cash income growth, not sources of new cash exits.
