After a hammering with my predictions in the 2007 RWC tournament, it’s time to get back on the horse again with another fearless prediction. And here it is: Alan Jones won’t be the next Wallabies coach or manager.
There are the practical matters like how could the admittedly workaholic Jones (who sleeps apparently about four hours only a night, gasp!) fit in the intensely busy work schedule he currently has with a full-time coaching job? He did it with Souths, it might be argued, but then that particular coaching stint was not successful.
It should be remembered too that in 1987 the RWC favourites Australia went out in the semi-final under a Jones coaching regime that was undermined by his need to concentrate on his new radio commitments and devote only the afternoons and evenings to the Wallabies.
Then there is the fact that the game has moved on since Jones was last the Wallabies coach in the 1980s.
It may be that the shrewd John O’Neill may want to give Jones some sort of honorary role in Australian rugby (chief motivator perhaps? gasp!) on the Lyndon Johnson grounds that it’s better for critics to be inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in. But I doubt this will happen.
The thing about the push for Jones to take over control of the Wallabies is that it is grounded in some bitter rugby politics. Before Rod Macqueen was appointed to the job of Wallaby coach in late 1997, when Greg Smith was clearly not up to the job, I and all the other rugby writers were subjected to a strong campaign to get Jones back in. I even scored a lunch at Machiavelli’s with Ross Turnbull pushing the Jones case.
Turnbull’s attempted intervention gives a clue as to the motives of the Jones push. It was all about wrenching control of Australian rugby from the officials (the good guys in my opinion) who had beaten off the Turnbull-Packer rugby circus takeover bid. The mark of the defeat of the Turnbull-Packer gang was the appointment of John O’Neill in 1996 to run Australian rugby as an independent organisation not beholden to any media group.
Alan Jones was extremely critical of the O’Neill appointment. O’Neill successfully sued Jones. In the lead-up to O’Neill’s second coming, he was backed this time by Jones. But whether this is enough for Jones to be rewarded with some honorary position remains to be seen.
Who then is likely to get the Wallaby coaching job?
If the NZRU is stupid enough not to appoint Robbie Deans as the All Blacks coach, it is clear that John O’Neill will push hard for him. There are timing problems related to this. The NZRU appointment is due to take place after the ARU says it will make its decision. You’d presume that the former All Black Deans would see the NZ job as first prize.
If not Deans, then David Nucifora would seem to be the obvious next choice. He is the only Australian coach available who has won a Super 14 title. He was booted out by the ACT Brumbies because he wanted to regenerate the squad. O’Neill wanted the Wallabies to do the same thing but was stymied by Eddie Jones. Nucifora’s stint with the Auckland Blues has not been overly successful.
There are other candidates, including Scott Johnson. But there is a feeling, expressed quite strongly by Mark Ella in recent arguments, that as Johnson was responsible for coaching the Wallabies (he ran the field sessions, anyway) that the disastrous 2007 RWC tournament campaign should be held against him.
Jake White? I think not. There is his connection with Jones minor, Eddie Jones, which will not go down well with the board of the ARU. There seems to be a change of attitude too in South Africa regarding quotas with the president Thabo Mbeki now talking about greater ‘facilities’ for black players rather than quotas as the way to bring them forward. My guess though is that a black or coloured Springboks coach will be appointed, as a sign that ‘transformation’ is taking place.
It seems to me, too, that there is a push to get White (the right name for an England coach, after all) as England’s coach. Brian Ashton has been savagely attacked by Laurence Dallalgio, and criticised severely by Mike Catt and Sir Clive Woodward. Ashton looked like a shoo-in a couple of weeks ago to retain his coaching job. But not now.
So, gulp, here’s the fearless prediction on the coming coaching appointments: look for David Nucifora for Australia, Robbie Deans for NZ, and Jake White for England.
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October 30th 2007 @ 11:28am
el capitan said | October 30th 2007 @ 11:28am | Report comment
Who ever is the national coach or manager, we need someone with new and fresh ideas. Perhaps plucking a coach from the club scene? Its worked for players, so it could very well work for coaches.
Australian rugby has suffered in the past with poor coach selections, however a coach can’t win the game at the end of the day, as it comes down to players. The Wallabies need a complete overhaul. Why is it that our U19 and U21 teams are up as the world best, but not the current national squad? The answer is that players are now paid and set into contracts. If a contract was year by year, exciting new talent could be injected into the team when required. Players feel like they are safe from being dropped, because they believe that the ARU won’t drop them and still allow them to earn the big bucks.
We need to get Rodriguez to fix our scrum. Those “so called tight 5″ bar the exception of Vickerman, need to be dropped. Scrumming is an art form, and we don’t need pretty boys up front. Look at the top level club scene. The blokes that have faces only a mother could love, they prop week in week out. There is no agro in the forward pack, the coach needs to instill the basics, like diving on a loose ball to secure it.
Well thats my 2c worth.
October 30th 2007 @ 11:35am
sheek said | October 30th 2007 @ 11:35am | Report comment
Onside,
I believe it’s better to make a decision & be wrong, rather than make no decision at all & vegetate.
October 30th 2007 @ 11:45am
Barry said | October 30th 2007 @ 11:45am | Report comment
Down Cronulla way there’s a bloke running around coaching a certain NRL team of perenial under achievers! This fella would make a brilliant wallaby coach.
Played in a great schoolboy side and has all the skills as both player and coach. Would surely set an example to the players.
Just wait until he is off contract and bang! Of course there is always pre-emptive strike, but that would take initiative, and guile so spose that rules ARU out.
Time to think outside the box, 4 years is not so long? is it Stu?
Best
Baz
October 30th 2007 @ 11:47am
Darryl said | October 30th 2007 @ 11:47am | Report comment
Very funny Greenie, I like it.
I think the NZRU is confirming their arrogance once again by not sacking Henry and offering the job to Deans straight away. They know the ARU wants to appoint someone by the end of November, but they think the AB job is so special that Deans will forget the Aussies and wait til the AB job is offered to him. And this may be so. But I think the AB job would be the worst job in the world for Deans. Why would you want to take a job where the public and the NZRU give you no other option other than victory? Atleast with the wallabies he gets a clean canvass of talented youth to mould where success will be more gauged on the development of the right culture.
I hope Robbie tells the arrogant NZRU to bugger off then move to Bondi.
October 30th 2007 @ 11:49am
rob mccourt said | October 30th 2007 @ 11:49am | Report comment
spiro
i agree with you on jones. it’s laughable that it even gets a run. jones of course does have remarkable presence. i recall a function for one of campo’s first retirements. jones was the guest speaker at the showground. it was not long after the dreaded london incident. i feared for jones at the hands of a hostile rugby crowd. within seconds the room was spellbound. he can be quite inspirational. in short bursts. it wears thin very quickly. and then you either ” pick and stick ” or incur the wrath and displeasure of jones. not a good environment for grown men who are trying to gel as a team.
so i think your choices are right.
most of us are not insiders so perhaps our opinions should be qualified. but i do know that nucifora performed well with the brumbies. he ran foul of a group of players particularly those that had healthy opinions of themselves. footballers must be the only group of employees who think that they run the show. what other job other than CEO’s of public companies guarantees a large salary and bonuses for either under performing or not performing at all. at least the CEO can say he or she was employed to run the show. i’m self employed. i don’t have a guarantee of income beyond tomorrow. most employees have no guarantee beyond 4-8 weeks at best. what makes a footballer so precious. nucifora took them on. for two reasons. firstly because he wanted his under performers to perform and secondly because he knew that he had to give the understudies a smell of the ultimate prize. so when he benched jeremy paul a number of years ago and started with digby beaumont he raised a few hackles. jeremy spat the dummy and so with the infamous assistance of justin harrison nucifora’s fate was sealed. and where was the brumbies board while all this was going on. pandering to the players and shafting nucifora. and where now is digby beaumont who was a very good young player.
and so to auckland went nucifora. another club with huge discipline problems. natural physical talent but none mentally. 7th in 2005 in the super 14. nucifora had an unremarkable first year. they came 8th. team culture does not change in a year. or two. this year they led for most of the year to fall at the end of the season in south africa. they still came equal 2nd although 4th on for and against. he one way or the other got rid of ali williams. talented but stupid. you don’t want players like that. if he is appointed australian coach we will never know if he was on the right track with auckland but i suspect he was.
i’d back him as australian coach. and then we need a board with spine to remind the players of their limited tenure and that the way to extend that tenure is to stop being precious and perform.we don’t need a foreigner. these are test matches. IRB rankings aside we are supposed to be in the top 4 rugby nations. i want someone who cries with the national anthem. someone with passion. someone who knows that even though it is professional sport this is your country whose pride is on the line. you can’t do that if the players are not your flesh and blood. look at henry during that lions tour. woeful. so give me an australian coach. otherwise i’ll move to argentina and support the pumas who at least appreciate the honour of playing for your country. if we were a fledgeling nation or a minnow i might feel differently. but we are not.
and lastly spiro i think the time has come to end the dramatics over our world cup campaign. again from the outside i thought conolly johnson and foley did a reasonable job. there weren’t a whole lot of new players who were suddenly going to turn the team around. they largely had to work with what they inherited. i think to call our world cup campaign disastrous is a little hysterical. we lost one game by two points. if we had played either south africa or england in the final we would have given it a very good shake. only one team did not lose a game. the winner. was the world cup disastrous for the other 19 teams. of course not. disaster is when you lose 8/9 tests. conolly and his crew did their job as well as they could. now it’s time to move on.
go nucifora.
rob mccourt
October 30th 2007 @ 11:53am
Darryl said | October 30th 2007 @ 11:53am | Report comment
Sheek
Considering Mark Ella left rugby because he hated Allan Jones do you really think he’d want to work with that fascist again? The only thing Allan Jones would do for the Wallabies is turn away all the supporters who have been recruited over years by rugby appealing to the masses more than ever before. Jones is a bigot and should stick with his over 65′s right wing proper gander job.
Okay …. I’ve calmed down now.
I’m surprised there hasn’t been more of a push to get MacQueen back into the coaching job. O’Neil seems to have a knack of getting the people he wants even if they seem not interested.
October 30th 2007 @ 1:14pm
Greg Russell said | October 30th 2007 @ 1:14pm | Report comment
It should not be forgotten that the Welsh are very much after Jake White too. That job pays very well (from memory Graham Henry was on something like 500,000 pounds per year) and there is an element of “nothing to lose” about the job (who expects the Welsh to win?). There is also the advantage of a nice clean takeover, whereas who knows what’s happening with the English coaching position? All else being equal White would obviously choose England over Wales, but I’m not sure that everything is equal.
October 30th 2007 @ 1:26pm
Pfitzy said | October 30th 2007 @ 1:26pm | Report comment
Stillmissit – Mitchell is happy to continue with the marshmallow as captain – says it all for me.
el capitan – Moore and Shepherdson are also worth persisting with. The issue is those ugly club props might rip it up every week in club rugby, but so do blokes like Baxter and Dunning. The cream are actually getting picked, its just that we don’t have the right scrummaging culture in this nation. The fat kids get picked at junior levels for prop – and they get picked last. In South Africa and New Zealand all positions hold honour. Here all the nippers want to be Gregan or Larkham or Horan or Burke. How many kids aspire to be Richard Harry?
October 30th 2007 @ 1:34pm
Pfitzy said | October 30th 2007 @ 1:34pm | Report comment
Darryl – Rod Macqueen has already stated he has no interest in returning to the job. Its a stressful venture compared to running his other successful businesses, and all the innovations he and his crew put together have been copied and worn out. His basic philosophy on rugby at the time was the requirement for new ideas.
Its also worth noting he had a pretty talented group of individuals together at the same time. Look at the RWC99 winning side:
Harry, Foley, Blades, Eales, Giffin, Cockbain, Wilson, Kefu, Gregan (at his peak), Larkham (at his peak), Roff, Horan, Herbert, Tune, Burke
And then guys around at the time like Kearns, Little, Bowman (who fell away badly shortly after this), Grey, Latham, Staniforth, Whitaker, Connors, Crowley.
Any of these blokes could, at the time, have held themselves in the top 5 of their position in the world. Can you say the same about any of the current squad? Maybe on potential, not proof.
October 30th 2007 @ 2:54pm
stillmissit said | October 30th 2007 @ 2:54pm | Report comment
Pfitzy
I think you might have me there. I am not sure what Mitchells options were but I would have found anyone other than Sharpe to captain a team under me. There again maybe that was the deal to get him to be one of the first to go over to Perth!
I am feeling very nervous about the next coach as there is a huge amount of work and tough decisions to be made to get this ship upright and headed in a reasonable direction. I am stuffed outside of Deans and really just casting around for an alternative that looks like a possible rather than a probable. This is not good enough for what we need at this time.
Maybe there’s a coach out of the radar at the moment – like for instance, who the hell coached the U21′s to their first win in 10 years against the All Black U21′s and why are we not discussing him?