For the most part the only time people take note of the work of the board is when things are going badly. When things are going well the team get praised and the board work away in the background. When things are going badly the spotlight is on the board.
That's their time to earn their fee. A good board will take decisive action quickly because they'll have planned for just such an occasion. a bad board will talk about reviews and forums and use them as stalling tactics while they try to cover their own asses. When they doesn't work the scatter gun comes out and they take out players and coaches. Sometimes they get lucky and some of the changes in personnel they make work out. Then results improve and they go back to the way they were.
It's not impossible for a team with a good board to have bad results. The difference is the good board will have a plan in place and because of that they send out clear messages. Contrast that with the Tahs board sending out the message that they need an emergency review of the season, then saying Foley's job rests on the last 2 games, then changing again to Foley is retained for next year. That is a board flying by the seat of it's pants.
When something like what is happening to the Tahs this year happens then at the very least the boards of the other 4 Aus franchises should sit up and take note. They should look at how the Tahs handled it and see what lessons can be learned. Then ask themselves do we have a plan in place to handle a similar situation at the Reds/Brumbies/Rebels/Force. If the answer is no then they need to put one in place, if the answer is yes they need to review the plan and make sure it's up to date and appropriate. It's a great thing to be able to learn from your mistakes but it's even better to learn the lesson from the mistakes of others and thus avoid making it yourself.
If reports are to believed one of the reasons Foley is being retained is that the Tahs can't afford to terminate his contract early. Let me say now that I don't believe Foley should be terminated, he's a good coach, but needs someone above him in a director of rugby role. But the Tahs obviously can't afford that. Through the boards mishandling of the situation the franchise's finances have gotten so bad that even if they knew what to do they couldn't do it due to lack of funds.
The disrespectful way they treated the views of fans contributed heavily to a lower than expected revenue as fans voted with their feet and their pockets and stopped going to games and buying merchandise. Whether they own the club or not fans should be treated as shareholders and I'm not talking about the way big corporations treat small shareholders either. They should treat them like big corporations treat big institutional investor.
The board can talk about increasing corporate revenue all they like but the revenue from ordinary fans is the life blood of the franchise. With TV deals and ARU money it might not be the biggest revenue stream. However the TV & ARU are pretty much fixed at the start of the season while revenue from fans is the largest fluctuating revenue stream and therefore should be managed very carefully. Aside from the idea of basic human decency treating fans with respect also makes economic sense!
There's a lot more I would like to say on the subject but I know for many people their eye gloss over if a post goes more than a couple of paragraphs and most of the people I'd like to share my views with have probably already skipped to the next post so I'll just say that there are lessons from the Tahs situation for all rugby club/franchises but especially for the Aus ones in the areas of planning, handling an injury crisis, coach & player retention, media relations, fan relations, acting respectfully to coaches/players/fans (how they've treated Foley, Tom Carter and the fans this year should be a blueprint of how not to do things), revenue management, succession and a whole host of other areas that I haven't even started on yet or that other people are more qualified to speak to, like Bruce and S&C.
A good board will sit up and take notice of what went wrong at the Tahs and will have 4 immediate thoughts:
1. Thank God it's not us
2. Wait a minute that could be us
3. Let's put a plan in place to make sure it's not us
4. Also while we're at it lets put another plan in place so we know what we're doing if it ever is us.
