Who should be the next Wallaby coach?
Columnist
By Spiro Zavos, 28 Aug 2007 Spiro Zavos is a Roar Expert
We know that win or lose in the World Cup tournament, John Connolly is finished as the Wallaby coach on October 20. We know also that John O’Neill desperately wants Robbie Deans, the most successful coach in Super Rugby history. O’Neill wants Deans as much for the way he can introduce a culture of playing and personal growth with most of his players, as much for his rugby know-how.
Deans, like Wayne Bennett and Graham Henry, is an advocate of the philosophy that better people make better players. I talked to him once about this. He told me he was impressed with the work of Cecilia Lashley, a New Zealand writer who has specialised in the development of young males into useful, happy and effective people, especially those from difficult backgrounds.
I asked him whether he believed in curfews and what sort of regime he imposed on his players. He told me he treated his players as responsible and mature people and he expected his players to behave in a way that was responsible and mature. As he was saying this, Daniel Carter walked past. The two exchanged pleasantries before Carter moved on.
I later reflected that the Deans method seemed to work with developing gifted young players into fine people. Carter is an example of the success of the method. And Stephen Brett, who might just be the second-best five-eighths in world rugby (if you don’t believe me watch Canterbury in their NPC games), is another outstanding player and person that Deans is developing.
The talk in New Zealand is that if the All Blacks win the World Cup, then Steve Hansen, a Graham Henry favourite, will become head coach. If the All Blacks don’t win, then Deans will be given the job.
If this is true, then in the case of an All Black win in the World Cup, Deans will be available to take up any of the offers that will pour in from around the world.
So the question is, should the ARU make him an offer he can’t refuse?
A number of notable former Wallabies, including Nick Farr-Jones, don’t think so. Neither does John Connolly. And now John Mitchell, the former All Black coach with Robbie Deans as his assistant, has stepped into the argument and argued that the next Wallaby coach should be an Australian. Mitchell accepts, though, that a non-national should be allowed to work with Australia.
In the same statement, Mitchell has ruled himself out of being involved in international rugby until 2011. But he has foreshadowed, or I think he has, some sort of involvement for himself in the Wallaby set-up before then.
This brings us back to John O’Neill. He is very clear that two brave selections of coaches, Rod Macqueen for the Wallabies replacing Greg Smith, and Guus Hiddink for the Socceroos replacing Frank Farina, made his career with the ARU and Australian Football.
He wants Robbie Deans. Will he, should he, get his main man?
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Derek said | August 28th 2007 @ 11:02am | Report comment
Really interesting challenge (or dilemma?) Spiro has raised. We are well and truly in the professional age, however, parts of the rugby fraternity have struggled with aspects of just what that can mean.
Alluding to Guus is important because it brought immediate results. At the time there really was nobody else locally available or, perhaps, with the necessary credentials. And what about Dav Whatmore (to cite another code) and his efforts with Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi cricket? Neither country would slag of his recruitment, I am sure!
Nick Farr-Jones is a legend and I respect him enormously. But even he struggles with understanding the professional era – possibly because he never played in it. It is interesting to note that he was one of the individuals that poo-poo’d the ARC!
The most interesting comments to date are Connolly’s and Mitchell’s, who I think, between them, have got it right. Head Australian national coach with the best available around him. Whatever, this issue is going to get some real coverage come October!
Hayden said | August 28th 2007 @ 11:29am | Report comment
Rod Maqueen often said that 80% of coaching is managing players. If Deans is the best at that then he should be coach. Let the assistant coaches remain Australian to learn from Deans and to instill the passion required.
In the professional era the players are used to jumping teams and have no problem with where the coach comes from. They will respect him for his record and skill. The rest comes from the players themselves.
Paulmc said | August 28th 2007 @ 11:48am | Report comment
This issue was raised here recently & the discussion was around loyalty (or pseudo loyalty). Where something as “religious” as the Bledisloe is concerned I think it would be hard for an NZ’r to inspire the Wallabies & similarly I would not like to see an Australian in charge of the AB’s
Derek is probably spot on
Craig said | August 28th 2007 @ 12:00pm | Report comment
Why is everyone (including ‘Bag of Wind’ O’Neill) having a go at Eddie Jones while O’Neill is after a Kiwi himself?!
O’Neill can’t accept professionalism when it counters his own cause, yet fully approves it when it works in his favour.
Again the world hears the absolute tripe coming from O’Neill’s mouth and doesn’t really care!
stillmissit said | August 28th 2007 @ 1:03pm | Report comment
I think that a Kiwi could coach our National team. The reasons are obvious from this small, at the moment, thread. Nobody here has mentioned an alternative and I dont believe there is one apart from David Nucifora and he would be gun shy after what Gregan et al did to him. Therefore let JON do what he does best and get us a top coach regardless of where he comes from.
I will say that after Robbie Deans it starts to get tough. Can’t imagine a pommie or a SA in the job so it must come from NZ. THis is not like the socceroos where there was a world of coaches to choose from.
Craig – give me that ‘bag of wind’ over anyone else in world wide rugby at the moment. We have had enough of the old boys club and the prevaricators and the political knifemen. I’d like to know what part of the world doesnt care what JON says as most of the learned writers here see it as a positive. Maybe you know something us mere mortals dont??
Sam Taulelei said | August 28th 2007 @ 1:28pm | Report comment
The same topic was discussed on Foxtels “The Back Page” on Monday night and Peter Fitzsimons was adamant that the Wallabies should be coached by an Australian and that man should be Scott Johnson.
Professional sport would suggest that nationalities shouldn’t enter the equation if you want to select the best man for the job. However this philosophy would seem to only apply to those countries outside of NZ, Australia, South Africa, England and France. Given the strength of rugby in the big five, their citizens would like to believe that they can find their national coaches from within their own ranks.
I guess outside of the current coaching panel (who unfortunately don’t coach any other team than the Wallabies) the possible contenders don’t immediately appeal as much as Robbie when you compare their coaching records.
But John O’Neill is after more than just results, he also wants to create a different culture within the Wallabies. So with that in mind, if you assess the culture within the Australian Super 14 franchises. How does Ewen McKenzie, Laurie Fisher and David Nucifora stack up? How does Scott Johnson and Michael Foley stack up?
Loyalty is an emotional defence from those who grew up understanding that a test match involved your best players and coach against another country’s. The national boundaries were very clear and they were never crossed. I often read of comparisons to foreign coaches in other sports particularly Guus Hiddink. From my perspective Guus took on a role when Australian soccer was on a par to what we would regard the Italian or Japanese rugby team, therefore we see it as a positive step to raise the playing standards of the team.
However Australian rugby is a world power and as such you would think that a suitable candidate for the Wallabies coach would be found in Australia. It would certainly be strange watching Robbie Deans singing Advance Australia Fair.
Craig said | August 28th 2007 @ 1:36pm | Report comment
Well, firstly do you remember John’s little tantrum about the Springboks leaving behind 20 starters? He was furious and threatened hardened action against the Boks at the SANZAR meeting held a week later. Didn’t stop the Boks though.
Before this John went on about how the Aussies should consider scrapping tests against north hemisphere sides cause of the French threat to send over a weakend side in 2008 due to top players being involved in their domestic league at the time of the planned tour of Australia. He wanted to re-introduce tours for the tri-nations and stated that the Reds versus the All Blacks is more viable than a Wallabies versus France B. Do we not remember the first Wallabies test of this year? The hooter ‘victory’ against Wales C? Or the hard fought victory against a very much weakend Bok XV? But of course the Reds against the All Blacks would be closer. I mean, the Reds only lost by 89 points to the Bulls!!
Then we had the whole Lote/Dunning show. O’Neill said he would come down with great vengence and furious anger against them. To the present time I don’t think an apology has been issued by either player. I still think Dunning believes he did nothing wrong!
Added to this, O’Neill went off on some tangent about how he wanted to have a Bledisloe Cup game in Hong Kong. Hong Kong!!! And you wonder why the ARU is in the red. Well, very unsurprisingly, this was brushed aside by the Kiwi’s.
And now we have the whole Eddie Jones vs Robbie Deans scenario. O’Neill said it is not something you would expect from an Australian coach. He told the SMH, “In a sense it tells you that the game has changed and coaches will take on jobs driven by motives other than loyality and patriotism.” Thanks John for that incredible insight.
And this is different from Deans how?
stillmissit said | August 28th 2007 @ 1:51pm | Report comment
Sam Taulelei – As a dedicated Wallaby supporter for 30 years I would rather cring at Robbie Deans singing our pathetic anthem than have another Eddie Jones or John Connolly – although things have improved under John he is too conservative for my tastes.
As far as Scott Johnson goes he arrived to something of a fanfare and used to coach the club I support Penrith. He is a specialist backs coach and I would have thought we would have seen more from our backline than we have. It is still close to the Eddie bash it up until your brains fall out and then give it to the forwards plot we all hated.
Ewan has proven no more adept at dealing with players than anyone else and seems to be setting the bar for good young players lost versus strugglers bought.
Michael Foley lacks experience.
Laurie Fisher screwed up big time with Australia A and that was his, hopefully, one off opportunity to prove he was capable of stepping up.
Basically Sam where is the talent? I agree with what you imply in your blog this aint an easy situation if Robbie says No. I guess if I was in his shoes and looked at the political crap that covers for Australian Rugby I would give it a lot of thought before I said Yes!
stillmissit said | August 28th 2007 @ 1:56pm | Report comment
If you want a name from left field I would suggest Tim Sheens (West Tigers League Coach) with David Campese as backs coach and Topo Rodriguez as scrum coach.
Tim Sheens evidently played Union and is IMHO the number one league coach in the country. Taking under performing teams on to greatness with excellent man management skills and a good eye for talent.
Most probably still prefer Robbie Deans but at least this is my idea for an alternative and I think we may have to become creative to solve this one.
kenikenipat said | August 28th 2007 @ 2:17pm | Report comment
Kia Ora Robbie Deans, I say.
Let’s not forget that a favorite pastime of Aussies is to claim all the decent Kiwis as our own. This is a win/win, as it expands our limited talent pool and pisses off the Kiwis. When he wins us RWC ’11, I’ll be nominating him for Australian of the Year. No worries mate.
After JON’s success with Guus he’ll be gunning for his man, regardless of nationality and won’t be put off by Farr-Jones and his biographers’ critism. Possibly though, because of it. If he considers it the best option for sustained improvement, he’ll take it. With success will come the money required to set up a perpetual fund and that will be JON’s legacy.
For an Aussie coming through, I’d like to see how the W’s backs go in France before packing in with Scott Johnson. But for mine he’s the man most likely. From the Wales experience he seems to be a whole of man type coach and favours an expansive game. The type of game he’s going to unleash on a sleeping opposition at the RWC….hopefully.
BTW NZ you can have Russell back now.