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About a month or so ago, I got an email from a friend in the United Kingdom. He told me that a friend of his who worked in the Irish Rugby Football Union had told him that …
1. Declan Kidney, the then coach of Ireland would be sacked.
2. That Les Kiss, the former Sydney rugby league winger and defence coach for Ireland, would take an Ireland Development side to the USA in June
3. And that the new coach of Ireland would be Ewen McKenzie.
Since then the following things have happened:
1. This week, Kidney was sacked.
2. Also the announcement was made that Kiss will take an Ireland Development side to the USA.
3. Ewen McKenzie has announced that he is stepping down from his coaching and development roles with the Queensland Reds franchise at the end of the Super Rugby season.
This last announcement is the crucial one for McKenzie and Australian rugby.
He has made no secret of the fact, and nor should he with his record, that he hopes to coach the Wallabies, sooner or later. But the timing of his resignation from the Reds franchise suggests to me that this aspiration is likely to be met later rather than sooner.
Ireland will need to have a coach, or a decision on a coach, before the start of the Wallabies and the other southern hemisphere teams’ November tours of Europe.
By announcing his resignation from the Reds when he did, well before the end of the Super Rugby season ends, McKenzie has put himself in line for an early call from the Irish rugby authorities.
The conventional wisdom in rugby circles is that Robbie Deans is finished as the Wallaby coach if his team loses its June series against the British and Irish Lions.
But Bill Pulver, the CEO of the ARU, has said that Deans will take the Wallabies to Europe in November, no matter what happens against the Lions.
This gives Deans, if say the Lions series is lost, a chance of redemption with The Rugby Championship series (which includes Bledisloe Cup Tests against the All Blacks) and the northern hemisphere tour.
If there are spectacular victories in these series, would this trump a possible loss to the Lions. Or, if the Wallabies defeat the Lions in the series will this, in turn, sort of guarantee Deans two more years up to 2015.
Put yourself in McKenzie’s boots now.
From all accounts, and even the UK Daily Telegraph says he is the favourite for the Irish job, he has a splendid and rewarding coaching job with Ireland virtually his for the taking.
Or he could give this chance up, which will not come again in all probability, and take his chances on the Wallabies wobbling through their next set of Tests and having his name endorsed as coach early next year.
McKenzie is a cautious, realistic thinker about the game and his career in it.
He turned down an earlier chance to coach the Wallabies because he felt he wasn’t ready and took up an offer from the Waratahs franchise.
It seems to me that this cautious, realistic approach is in play once again. He is ready for the job. But the job is not ready for him. The time-table is out of sync for him right now.
If he takes the job of coaching Ireland, he will take this side to the 2015 Rugby World Cup tournament in England. Ireland have some good young backs coming through and the side might be effective in this tournament.
Deans will certainly not coach the Wallabies in 2016. This could be McKenzie’s best chance. Of course, Jake White has said that he intends to make a play for the Wallaby job then, as well.
There is a lot of rugby to be played and coached up to 2016.
The Ireland job now, it seems to me, is McKenzie’s best chance of moving on, in time, to the Wallaby job.