I do find it interesting that, regarding both KB (Kurtley Beale)'s actual move and now JO'C's speculated upon one, the media management and PR leaks all are designed to create defensive alignment and arse-cover management to avoid unfortunate external conclusions that perhaps, just perhaps, these fine talents are not principally departing for vast $ uplifts, but might in fact be leaving because:
- they believe more in what Macqueen (and his support) is by repute, style and by achievement (and thus the coaching/team culture benefits for them, developmentally) vs what they have come to know of Hickey's and Graham's worlds.
Shock, horror. Might they actually care about such things?
No one managerially in elite Aus rugby takes responsibility for anything much any more, haven't we all noticed? It is always injury problems, crazy money being offered, 'set up for life' stuff, looking for new pastures, under funding of some critical program that's the ARU's fault, lack of player depth in Aus rugby, he's heading overseas, etc. Nothing is ever anyone's fault, it's almost always 'external circumstances'. We live by fate in this code, don't you know?
At least that I have seen thus far, no manager of standing has stood up at the Tahs or NSWRU and said something like: "We greatly regret KB (Kurtley Beale)'s leaving, it ideally should not have happened this way, and at this time. We going to objectively analyse what if anything we could have done better in the Tahs management, or in the NSWRU, to keep such a key player on board. Meanwhile, we thank KB (Kurtley Beale) for a major contribution NSW rugby and wish him well for his future career in Aus rugby"
