What an absolute disaster… THIS is what Hamish McLennan dumped Dave Rennie for? He and everyone else involved should all be sacked.

England v South Africa is always an interesting one as the two sides have always played a similar style of brute force, set piece oriented rugby with an emphasis on tactical kicking for field position and generating errors/penalties. The issue for England has ALWAYS been that whilst they can bully some other sides, the South Africans have always been bigger, stronger and possessed better kickers. England got close here, but it is telling that the only try scored was one in which the boks just bashed the English into submission – it was a try that sums up the two countries’ relationship in rugby – England always try and bash the boks into submission, but ultimately the boks always withstand them and then just roll over the exhausted and battered English husks.

There’s no chance in hell that RA are getting a “minimum of $50m per year”. They’ll be lucky to get $20m at this stage.

The question I have is whether “old boy Hamish” has any performance clauses in his own contract? How he’s still there is quite difficult to understand…

Sacking Eddie may not be the answer, but McLennen has no role in the future of Australian Rugby. He’s shown himself to be staggeringly incompetent, lacking any understanding of what makes sporting businesses successful and appears addicted to just getting himself in the headlines with shallow comments and pot shots at others.

For Australian Rugby to recover, he has to go and Phil Waugh should probably follow him as he has no answers either – everything he’s suggested is all about trying to turn back the clock to the 90s without understanding Australia – and the world – has moved on.

Mike, you raise some fair points, but I think in comparing eras you miss a very major point. Specifically, I’m referring to your comment that

30 years ago, the competition in Test football was demonstrably weaker than it is now, with the Kangaroos losing four matches in the entire 1980s and winning 90% of matches from 1980 through to the Super League War.

On top of that, they can play more games against a greater variety of nations, rather than the two that they played for almost all of the 1980s and 1990s outwith the 1995 World Cup.

This is true, but it misses a few key issues.

1. Season length and intensity
In 1980 RL in Australia was still just the NSWRL, with no interstate travel and it was a full month shorter than it is today and the state of origin concept had only just been born – with a solitary game played in 1980 as opposed to the 3 all consuming games that are played mid season today.

2. The historical legacy of British dominance
The fact that the Kangaroos were invincible in 1980 was in a certain sense still fairly remarkable, given that most adults alive at that time had largely been familiar with long periods of English dominance – Great Britain had won the Ashes in 1970 and won the World Cup in ’72.

Put another way, by 1980 the record in Ashes series between the Lions and Australia was still massively in the Lions favour, sitting at 19 to Australia’s 11 wins. So psychologically, the default starting position of your average Australian and English fan was that these tests will be hard fought and that Australia has hard to work to overcome a huge historical dominance established by the old country.

Essentially, this period was Australia starting to get its own back on its big brother, and showing a lot of dynamism in how to play the game in the process. We were winning new fans with our style and shifting the centre of power of the game from the UK to Australia.

I agree that it’s great that the PI nations have become more competitive, but the dynamic is different as they’re all products of the NRL system as opposed to representing so “other system” from across the globe that has risen up on its own to challenge Australian dominance.

It is great for Pacifika peoples and it has been fantastic to see the growth in the passion for the game among Tongans and Samoans especially, but in terms of something that will spur pride in the Kangaroos, it doesn’t really have as great an impact as to be honest I don’t think many Australians get an pleasure out of beating the Islands.

In truth, what we need is a strong United Kingdom. A bit of hate is a good thing – that’s why we all love the Ashes – but it’s hard to hate a side we’ve beaten in every series we’ve been in for the past 50 years… if the English Super League were somehow to get its act together and be able to spread beyond the M62 and develop a real and enduring foothold in the South that contributed to making them a genuine force again – and one that English people cared about – then we’d likely see a resurgence in interest in the Kangaroos.

The other thing that might also spur it on is a consolidation of NZ. Put another 2 teams there and support them growing a strong international team and you have a much more robust rivalry.

Nothing that happened under Castle comes close to the unmitigated disaster wrought by Waugh and McLennen since they took over. The game will cease to exist in Australia if these amateurs are allowed to keep their jobs.

Came here to say this. Where is the letter from former captains demanding the heads of the current board?!

Nobody in Australian Rugby League circles fear rugby.

None of them have shown anything resembling the sort of potential they’d require to become half the player Cleary was at just 21. The players in the Australian Rugby system at half all just look substandard.

Ha! If you’re expecting to get it because the AFL get stuff handed to them, then you may be waiting a while. The AFL get everything handed to them on a platter thanks to their $2bn lobbying machine they run out of Melbourne. People talk about V’Landys getting stuff out of the NSW Gov, but it’s almost entirely been multi-use stadia and it has been MASSIVE controversial in the public.

It didn’t seem to be an issue for the Women’s world cup. But the broader point remains; who is going to pay for it when even multi-use stadia earns howls from the general public who view spending on sporting facilities as a waste of money.

This is all fair. To be honest, if there is one person I’d REALLY like to see Rugby recruit from the NRL it’s probably Craig Bellamy for that reason. What Union needs more than anything is a coach with a systems and standards building mindset, and Bellamy has done that better than anyone over the last 20 years.

Yep – Rogers, Tuqiri and Sailor were all core members of that side. Rogers came to Rugby as a winger as well, but ended up playing FB in that match. Had a pretty good game, but arguably his lack of a long kicking game is what lost the match – something Cleary would not be suffering from.

It’s not a massive size differential, but he just plays a much more physical style and imposes himself so much more on the opposition. I don’t disagree RE where RA should be spending it’s money BTW – I just think that if they’re blowing millions on the likes of Crichton and Sua’ali’i – players that will be in positions we’re not lacking in – then they’re mad not to be going after Cleary.

You’re making the argument that the games are somehow so different that the skills have no applicability. You argue that lots of League players “failed to make the conversion” yet most that have gone over have represented Australia. Heck, Matt Rogers joined a winger in League and ended up being a fairly successful, full back, centre and later even played at 10 for them. If he could be “learning the context” up from a league winger to the point where the selectors are playing him at 10 for the Wallabies, I think Cleary would have a heck of a shot given the fundamentals he would bring are soooo much better than anything Rogers had in his arsenal.

Sure, but there’s more to it than that. The skills are all there, but whilst the context is different, his temperament would remain the same. That’s one thing Australian rugby desperate lacks at present – mature heads with the right temperament. The side has no direction, no composure and few players with genuinely world class ability to execute on basic skills to rest on.

Context can be learned with the sort of foundations Cleary would be bringing. The Wallabies are side made up of the dregs of Australian sport, and that’s how they play. If there are to be strategic acquisitions from League, then it ought to be in areas that will give the side a shot at developing some structure and with leaders that might also lend them some mental resilience. The current crop look weak mentally – they fell in a heap so quickly against Wales that it was embarrassing.

Being better at steering a team is a very big difference… I’d also argue Cleary’s bigger, stronger and has a vastly superior tactical and goal kicking game. It’s not close.
I’d argue that Cleary has a more complete game than Larkham in a lot of ways – that is helped by the size differential, which puts him more in the Dan Carter mould. At the back end, Larkham looked like he was being held together with tape.

McLennen is an empty suit who has achieved nothing since coming to power apart from making headlines by picking pointless fights with the NRL. He’s vacuous and dim in the extreme – as the AFR put it, a product of corporate Australia’s “fail up cultures”.

How on earth Raelene Castle earned the ire of 11 former captains and yet they’re all silent on this man’s disastrous reign is beyond me.

Honestly, would you not jump at the chance to snag a mature game managing half from the NRL? Cleary’s style of play and skillset is actually perfectly suited to what makes for successful flyhalfs in Union. If RA want to blow cash on players, then that is one position that Union is desperately lacking in. Heck, even as far back as 2013 the skill level of 10s in Australian Rugby was so poor that Robbie Deans played James O’Conner out of position there. Along with forwards, it’s the position we’ve been weakest for longest.

The more important point is that there isn’t a single person among Australian Rugby’s playmakers that I can think of that would ice a sideline conversion with a championship game in the balance, or execute a clutch 50-22 (let alone a 40-20) to get their side back in a game that was slipping away from them.

The Lions tour is shaping up as a blood bath… TBH, under Rennie I thought there was genuine progress being made – we were losing games, but remained competitive and Rennie’s Wallabies always felt like fierce competitors at the breakdown. All that has fallen away under Jones and it’s hard to see how the side could possibly rebuild in time for the Lions in 2025

I generally agree with this sentiment, but the big error of RA has been that they ALWAYS chase outside backs – the one area Australian Rugby doesn’t actually lack talent. That said, if there is an area we have looked very poor on for a while now, it’s at 10. Not since Larkham has there been a truly world class 10 in Australian Rugby. We’ve had a few flashy halves like Cooper from time to time, but no hard nosed, tactical game managers that can both keep the ship steady AND break games open. Cleary is young enough to make the change, and frankly is light-years beyond anything that exists in Australian rugby in that position.

All this is true, but if there is one thing apart from forwards that Australian Rugby lacks, it’s world class halves that know how to manage games and can handle pressure. Targeting Cleary would actually be a departure from Rugby’s long term approach, which to date has always been about targeting flashy outside backs that Rugby Australia have never actually needed from League…

Good analysis Christy – agree with this completely.

Comparing Cleary to Marshall is nonsense. Marshall was well past it in his 30s when he went to Union, and frankly was always more of an instinct “eyes up” half, rather than a tactical game manager like Cleary.

Cleary is easily young enough and the skill-set he would bring is just frankly much better attuned to the needs of Union than what a player like Marshall was bringing.