Why the Wallabies’ green-and-gold legacy is stained with blood

OPINION: Hamish McLennan, the chairman of Rugby Australia, told disgruntled Wallabies supporters ahead of the Wales game: “Don’t watch.”

It is about the only sensible thing that McLennan has said during his sorry tenure. Australian fans were heading for the exit long before the end of the Laceration in Lyon. Former captain George Gregan called it the lowest point in Australian rugby history.

And at least coach Eddie Jones, who still has some idea of what honour means, took it like a man. He apologised. He took full responsibility. He admitted that his coaching has not been good enough.

It took longer for Logan Roy’s idiot son Connor, otherwise known as the chairman of RA, to emerge in selected media interviews. McLennan told the Sydney Morning Herald he is fully accountable for the decisions he has made, but defended Jones’ appointment as coach and says he does not regret sacking Jones’ predecessor, Dave Rennie. McLennan also admitted he hadn’t spoken to Jones about his secret job interview with the Japanese Rugby Football Union, but said Jones had told CEO Phil Waugh ‘’there was nothing in it.”

But McLennan is the man ultimately responsible for this mess. He is the man who fired Rennie, a coach who had spent three years building a decent culture. He is the man who CEO Andy Marinos walked out on. He is the man who brought in Jones at a cost of over A$800,000 a year, a high price for a coach who had just been sacked by England.

What an insane succession plan. McLennan fired a salt-of-the-earth bloke who builds cultures and replaces him with a hooligan coach who famously smashes them up. I called it a bloody business at the time and wondered what price the current Australia players would now put on loyalty.

The answer, we now know, is none. In what McLennan himself described as Australia’s “most important game since the Rugby World Cup final in 2015”, the players went walkabout. By the end Samu Kerevi, perhaps the best 12 in the world, was a fumbling mockery of his normal self.

McLennan appointed Jones for the twinkle in his eye and his ruthlessness but Eddie has been a disaster. He has shown all the intellectual certainty of Joe Biden, although at least he has been careful not to repeat himself. He has gone through five captains in seven games. I guess that is the definition of ruthless on planet McLennan.

When McLennan said ahead of the Wales game that “King Charles will be barracking for Australia” you knew he had lost the plot. This was a juvenile stab at getting media headlines, but it didn’t even make any sense.

King Charles is the former Prince of Wales. His eldest son is the current Prince of Wales. It was a ludicrous statement unless McLennan was talking about his own pet King Charles spaniel. Still, nothing makes sense any longer in this mad new green and gold rugby world where Australia, the historical home of great 10s like Mark Ella and Michael Lynagh, now treats their playmakers like kids on a work experience scheme.

What a dog’s dinner

The man-of-the-match performance of Bundee Aki in Ireland’s win over South Africa should get New Zealand Rugby thinking. They can’t keep losing players overseas who could help them win future World cups. If the All Blacks had Aki at 12 and Tawera Kerr-Barlow at 9 in France, then they would be a much scarier proposition.

But they lost both those players because of a lack of vision, a lack of forward planning under the watch of Steve Hansen. I don’t blame Hansen. Coaches have to live in the here and now. But New Zealand Rugby has missed a trick by not appointing a man who fulfils the role of protecting the future. Several of the top soccer clubs have an overall ‘director of football’ who oversees the talent scouts, the academy, the future proofing. So why not NZR.

No 12 is one of the crucial roles in modern rugby. Part of the All Blacks success from 2011 to 2015 was because they had two great No 12s in Ma’a Nonu and SBW. But even they had to be nurtured. Time was spent on their development. But now New Zealand do not have a 12 worth the name. That is an indictment of their systems. Their money has not been spent wisely.

I doubt he will thank me for it, but ‘director of rugby’ is an obvious job for Wayne Smith.

Anger

That was my reaction to Antoine Dupont, the greatest player in the world by the length of the Champs Elysees, getting his face smashed in. Can you imagine the uproar at the Football World Cup if Lionel Messi or Kylian Mbappe had been ‘thugged’ out of the competition. But soccer acted long ago to protect its top players.

Rugby is still in the dark ages. I have heard Dupont’s injury being compared to the one that took Dan Carter out of the 2011 World Cup, but it is not the same. Carter suffered a groin injury that was arguably stress related. It was part of the fortunes of war. Dupont’s injury was the result of an act of violence.

Yes, I have heard the apologies of the Namibian player Johan Deysel and the abuse that he has received online is quite unconscionable. And yes, I can accept there was no malice. But I cannot accept it was an accident.

If World Rugby’s judiciary has any sense, one of the more doubtful hypotheticals, then they will review the match leading up to the high tackle that fractured Dupont’s cheekbone. They will see Deysel twice going in upright on Gael Fickou in marginal tackles. They will see Deysel smashing Tomas Ramos with a shoulder just below the neckline. They will see him whaling into the back of Dupont with the intent to hurt just after the French genius had put in a crosskick for a try.

That was all in the first half. Deysel was an accident waiting to happen, which means that it wasn’t an accident at all. If World Rugby wants to get a grip on this sort of violence then the panel, chaired by Australian Adam Casselden, needs to look at Deysel’s ‘previous’ in the match.

The Namibian captain was out of control. The punishment should reflect the crime. Add up the weeks that Dupont is unable to play and double the sentence on Deysel with no nonsense about early guilty pleas and tackle school. I would also bring in fines for the players from tier one countries for this sort of thing.

Yes, I know, more fantasy rugby. But at least we can still dream.