WJ, please look at the post I placed in the"
The dying - perhaps death - of Rugby in Australia. ' thread.
The feeling of a number of people is that Rugby in Aus is not as it should be. And to me that means that despite your almost evangelical support of JoN, I believe that the buck stops at the top.
I cannot provide any 'proof' or evidence that JoN is not doing his job other than to say that Aus Rugby is not where
we should be.
I understand that you were at a function where he spoke and you liked what you heard, but I will put a different proposition to you. Had Jon governed better, there would not have needed the degree of cost cutting required in the last 18 months. He is being paid almost $1M a year, but I believe he has been largely ineffective, no actually
in my opinion (please note the emphasis) he has been detrimental to Aus Rugby.
You have stated on numerous occasions that his role is to look after the dollars so that the players, coaching, support, medical etc staff can focus on their roles without worrying about money. Well I contend that he has failed on numerous levels.
He doesn't limit himself to a hands off oversight role, he (again in
my opinion) feels that he has to take control over areas that are best left to specialist subordinates. My biggest concern with Jon is his selection of his subordinates and his failure to apply rigorous standards as to their performance. He has appointed them and that is good enough; RD Nuci et al.
As a CEO it is your role to assess your staff's and the organisations performance by índependant and verifiable review. This is patently not happening, to the extent that it is laughable.
His instigation of the salary cap is another indictment on his inability to run
this organisation in the manner needed. You may argue (and you have done so) that this is necessary cost cutting. I would argue that a better CEO would not after 4 or 5 years at the helm would have to resort to this.
The reduction in squad size is a duplication of the paragragh above.
Same for the amalgamation of the academies.
From my perspective, I see a JoN as more of an abrasive grandstander aka Alan Joyce (Lets trash everything Australian about QANTAS and watch it grind into the ground) rather than a Twiggy Forrest who tries to work
with people.
What would I do differently you ask? That's very simple. Appoint me to be the CEO of the ARU and my first act would be to go into caretaker role untill I could fast track an Independant Commission to run the ARU.
Anything less is unacceptable. We deserve better than what we have at the moment.
