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Currently, the pro-Robbie Deans alliance is nowhere to be seen. Its affiliates have either gone very quiet or membership numbers have shrunk to record lows.
A seismic sea wave of gloomy vibes is draped around Australian rugby at the moment, and the collective spittle of blame is being propelled towards its adopted Kiwi boss.
Everyone who cares about the green and gold running game, from your regular line-marker for the local subbies to the always even-tempered David Campese, have all become extremely forthcoming with their useful criticism for the coach, with the majority of the friendly consultancy containing various adaptations of advice such as ‘sack the bastard’, ‘send him home’ and/or ‘give me a crack at this mug’s job.’
However, I’m here to remind Deans and his fruit-covered staffies that some of his backers are still about and supportive of his plans.
Some of us may be cowering inside a forest, hiding in a rum barrel or bravely taking a stand for the man from behind a keyboard. Nonetheless, we’re still breathing.
Excuse me while I calmly place my head inside the fang-filled mouth of an un-fed jungle cat. I’m about to go into bat for Dingo Deans, and it may get my fellow natives bashing the keyboard like a classical pianist after five coffees.
Mr Deans, our contracted Aussie, Tasman rugby kingship and the victim of much north shore caterwauling, tabloid cussing and burned effigies of your likeness cloaked in tweed jackets. I want you to know that I feel your pain.
One hopes this will assist you to a good night’s sleep, safe in the knowledge that there is a tiny smidgeon of the population that don’t want to place a flaming bag of dog poo on your front porch.
Here are some reasons why I think you are still the right man to lead the Wallabies into the future and beyond.
Firstly, you are not the first bloke who can’t coach a team to beat New Zealand in rugby. I understand that they tend to win. A lot.
Unfortunately, the yardstick for success here in Australia is whether or not we can repeatedly beat the buggers, and right now you can’t, much like most blokes before you, barring that magnificent Rod McQueen and his lethal bunch of Wallaby demigods from the noughties.
And what about the rotten hand you’ve been dealt by the mystical forces of injuries and foot-in-mouth?
One cannot be expected to push a billy-kart to its optimum performance without its first choice tyres and a reliable controlling rope, and recently you’ve been given parts straight from a back alley Taiwanese toy factory.
I challenge any other coach to build their international soapbox car without valuable machinery such as David Pocock, Will Genia, James O’Connor, Steven Moore et al. And there’s also the dodgy steering fulcrum that is Quade Cooper that you’ve had to mollycoddle.
Finally, if there was one cultural aspect of a rugby organisation that could quell such a rugby brain swollen with nous like yours, it’s the factional warring of the local scene involving the catty bitching and two-faced antics of our franchises and the bloodthirstiness of the press.
Would it kill the lot of them to put their own agendas to one side and pull together for the greater good, allowing you to play the role of a coach and not a mediator, thus helping you to concentrate on backline moves, scrum technique and sourcing sufficient Panadol for Berrick Barnes?
It would appear that yes, it would kill them to do so. And it’s unfair.
As our national coach, and a bona fide master of rah-rah philosophy, you deserve better.
Sure, a couple of performances that the team has produced on your watch have been downright horrendous. Intestine-evacuating. Minnow standard. The consistency of sink-pipe hair and trough lollies combined.
But that’s because you haven’t been given a chance to succeed.
Let it be known that I, for one, am behind you as the man to haul Australian rugby on to your back and valiantly carry it forth into the future as the global colossus of world rugby it must be.
I will be handing out pamphlets, cold calling and doorknocking, campaigning and driving a Tarago with a loudspeaker on top, all in the name of turning the public around and getting the lot of them behind the Robbie Deans cause.
(I will probably leave Campo alone though, as he seems deluxe cheesed.)
So to those dismayed in green and gold, it starts this Sunday morning against the Poms.
C’mon Australia. Help save the Dingo!