What is really going to change if Michael Cheika gets the job? We’ve seen two good rugby men, superb coaches with bulletproof credentials, betrayed. And betrayed is not too strong a word.
Robbie Deans and Ewen McKenzie deserved far better. Not just from their players, leadership group and administrators, but from the Australian rugby public too.
The problem is that bulletproof doesn’t seem to mean Wallaby proof. It’s not even Roar proof and it sure isn’t Beale proof.
Close to two years ago, I wrote an article on The Roar supporting Robbie Deans and was widely criticised for it. Many of the arguments put forward to crucify Deans were dubious.
Deans was only the most successful Super Rugby coach of all time and that was someone else’s doing anyway. Deans may have been at the helm when Richie McCaw and Dan Carter were unearthed, but why should he be credited with those finds?
Then the old chestnut was trotted out, Deans doesn’t play the “Australian way”. His game plan was awful. His selections mirrored the game plan. He didn’t have a clue. Allan Jones said so. Even Campo said so. It must be true.
This wasn’t Australian rugby’s fault. There is no culture problem in Australian rugby. Being second best in the world is all down to that dastardly Kiwi Robbie Deans. He is probably a secret agent sent to destroy the game in Australia for good. Dubious indeed.
So we all got want we wanted. Ewen McKenzie with his brand of running rugby and record of turning the Reds into world beaters.
Here was a man who had played 50 Tests and won a World Cup in 1991. McKenzie won the Bledisloe twice as a player alongside giants of the game. He’d coached the Waratahs to a Super Rugby final and won it with the Reds. He’d been an assistant Wallaby coach in 2003 and even turned down the position in 2007 when he felt unready for it.
Surely, he would be above the petty public ridicule that had doomed Deans. Surely, the players would find it possible to trust his methods and judgment. Sadly, not even McKenzie’s record saved him. Those runs on the board and banked rugby credits didn’t earn him the respect he deserved.
It didn’t stop the rugby public from turning on him 12 months into his reign, despite the fact that just three extra points would have won the Bledisloe this year.
The media still felt able to drag McKenzie’s name through the mud and print innuendo about his relationship with a female staffer. Her treatment by sections of the press borders on the criminal.
Yet it was the players who have the most to be ashamed about. While leaping to the defence of a colleague who has disgraced himself time and again, they felt unable to intervene as McKenzie’s reputation was smeared and systematically dismantled.
The immature defences of Beale by a Wallaby captain and vice-captain, a centurion no less, are hard to stomach. Two better men, say McCaw and Kieran Read, would never have thrown a man like McKenzie to the wolves while cuddling up to a child, and an ungrateful one at that.
What it reeks of is a player coup. Had senior Waratahs already decided that Cheika was their man? Why did Bill Pulver’s spirited defence of McKenzie only come after he’d resigned? Could it be that grudges held since Dublin were finally settled?
It matters now because this is the playing group Cheika may be inheriting. A fickle, disloyal, overrated bunch of mercenaries capable of turning in a brilliant performance when they feel like it.
There is no doubt Cheika has the credentials. He’s won a European title with Leinster and Super Rugby title with the Waratahs. He is an uncompromising character capable of creating a hard-edged forward pack. Just what the Wallabies need.
The great Brian O’Driscoll holds Cheika in high esteem, no small compliment from a man coached by Graham Henry, Clive Woodward, Ian McGeechan and Warren Gatland. Former Shark, Bull and Springbok Jacques Potgeiter called Cheika the best coach he’d ever had.
But are Cheika’s credentials really all that different to Deans’ and McKenzie’s? Will overindulged players with dubious moral compasses, living off the past achievements of gentlemen like McKenzie, John Eales and Tim Horan not just revert to type.
One thing that Cheika is not, is placid. He does not suffer fools. By all accounts he runs a tight ship, or plane. He apparently also gives rousing pre-game speeches and is not short of passion, or volatility.
Some have questioned whether a Wallabies coach can be volatile. Cheika will indeed need to check himself at times. But it may just be that this quality at least buys him time with the Australian public. It is after all passion and pride that many believe has been missing for too long from the Wallabies.
In any case, Beale and company need a few windows broken in close proximity or to exit stage left through them. Good luck Michael Cheika, you’ll need it.
BetterRedThanDead
Guest
Yep, I agree with that.
jeznez
Roar Guru
I tried what I thought was a moderate reply here but got moderated! Will try again. My post is lame but all this anti-NSW conspiracy stuff is as well. TEC's post is spot on that this speculation about Cheika potentially showing bias is absolutely crook.
jeznez
Roar Guru
I think results could have saved him but I don't think they are what finished him if that makes sense?
Mielie
Guest
It is not the media. It is not the supporters. I can't see an international Rugby coach weeping on his pillow at night about what people think and say about him..... Its the players. What motivates a national Rugby coach to make his team sit out on the paddock during 1/2 time?. What were the players doing in the dressing room that was that bad? Tim Horan, John Eales, David Campese etc, etc.. These guys had the attitude...... I am blessed to have the skills to play Rugby well. Thank you. Gratitude. I have been chosen to represent Australia in the game of Rugby. A privilege. As such, I will treat the position with respect not only to myself, but to the game of Rugby and to all the other great men who have worn the Wallaby jersey before me. I will work hard to be able to join the ranks of those men. I have a major responsibility. Todays mob appear to have the attitude of... Geez I'm good. Geez I'm so bloody rich. Australia is soooo lucky to have me playing Rugby Union for them. Don't talk to me like that coach. I'll go to League if you carry on like that. I don't like this coach. I'll speak to one or two of the boys and see if we can find someone who will put up with my s... . And this, unfortunately, seems to be the attitude of the present players. If you change this attitude you will have the world cup in your sights with the direction of a coach. The coach does not win the WC. The players do
richard
Guest
A 52% winning record sealed his fate.If his winning record was higher,including wins over the ABs,do you think he would have been moved on? Along with the NSW faction undermining him ( if the rumours are true) McKenzie was always on a hiding to nothing. A truly "toxic" environment to work in.If I were Cheika I would be watching my back.
trashcan
Guest
Dwyer and Macqueen were the real deal iconic coaching brains that could get the best out of a group of players to focus towards a common cause. I expected more from Mackenzie I thought he had the integral gut feel and intuitive capacity for putting winning combination together. But his string of poorly selected team combos from the beginning of his tenure show up a coach who tried to paint his own canvas through trial and error processes while omitting (blindly ignoring) some very vital textures and colours.
BetterRedThanDead
Guest
There have been enough column inches and posts devoted to Beale. He is a grub and australian rugby will be all the better for his departure.
BetterRedThanDead
Guest
From my reading I think we generally are Biltong?
BetterRedThanDead
Guest
Jez, serious question - do you think that the past two weeks would have played out differently if we had won against the Boks, Pumas and AB's? I would venture it may well have.
jeznez
Roar Guru
I note you say he "apparently abused her" the fact more than three weeks later what happened inside a controlled environment is unclear is what has us all speculating wildly. I agree that the text issue is awful but the fact that this has been ongoing since June is again tied to my issue that items are being left to fester and not being dealt with openly.
wre01
Roar Guru
Wow Mike (or is it Kurtley!). The playing group has now turned on two coaches, very experienced ones with brilliant track records. It has been at the centre of more behavioural scandals than NZ, SA and Argentina combined. Some of them bordering on the ludicrous. I am not sure how any fair minded person could honestly believe there is nothing wrong with the behaviour of this group of players. Further, their performances are so up and down (losses to Samoa, Scotland and Argentina versus superb efforts like last Saturday in Brisbane) that it is hard to find anything other than attitude as a reason. As for Beale. I understand that it is your position that he might not have sent inappropriate texts and even if he did, she might have deserved it? You also seem to say that someone took her phone, saved her text messages and then without her position released them. Not only that, but you dispute that a verbal altercation on an aircraft that has in fact been confirmed by the ARU never took place and if it did, it was again her fault. Hmmm. We'll leave those defences to the tribunal but they don't look great.
Mick Gold Coast QLD
Roar Guru
Mike
Guest
"Sydney rugby power brokers .... almost scuppered the NRC" OMG, another conspiracy theorist "Until the old boys club in Sydney wakes up to that..." Of course, its all their fault. "Rugby in Australia has cancer" Yes, and you and your fellow NSW conspiracy nuts are it.
Mike
Guest
"Beale apparently verbally abused her " According to who? And why did he do that? And what was said by each person? Unless you know these things (and you don't know any of it - you don't even know for certain what was in the texts) then you can guess, but you can't make a definitive judgment . Your bias is so patent that you credibility is zero. "which obviously was the final straw and caused her to release details of the text scandal." So it was her that released it to the media? I haven't heard anyone claim that yet. As for when she told McKenzie about it, there are differing accounts of that. "If anyone of us verbally abused a colleague and work and sent sexually and physically derogatory texts about her to colleagues we’d be before employment tribunals and possibly the Courts." You don't know what you are talking about. Firstly, you may well be before an employment tribunal or the courts, but so might she, and so might others. The fact is that you don't know the whole story about this, even though you pretend that you do. Secondly, even if the texts that have been leaked are genuine, they are not anywhere near the most serious type of incidents. Depending on all the circumstances, in a workplace they might result in sacking, but they also might not result in anything more than a warning. Get off your high horse .
Mike
Guest
Adios mate.
Mike
Guest
"...this isn’t about Pulver, it is about a playing group who are disloyal, over rated and only pull out a performance when they feel like it." Of course, they differed with Ewen so they must be evil. Yeah, whatever...
Mike
Guest
Its guaranteed that they will TEC, its just what happens.
Mike
Guest
"I personally think it will create a bigger divide that there already is with nsw players and the other states" What divide is there (apart from the one that you obviously want to exist)? "Genia and cooper are a must when they are fit and healthy" Why? Both have been very patchy over the last two years. If they are looking the goods (i.e. playing well, a factor you didn't mention) and appear to be the best available, then by all means bring them in.
Mike
Guest
What Ashley Cooper said was entirely reasonable: "I don't condone what's gone on but I think at the end of the day he's a friend of mine and his welfare is important to me. I'm feeling for him at the moment and I want to make sure that a friend sticks by a friend through tough times." It is exactly what he should have said. He is leaving it to the independent tribunal (which will presumably have all of the facts before it - which nobody on the Roar comes even close to having, even though many here pretend that they do) to make its decision, but supporting his friend as a friend.
Terrosilops
Guest
Hooper, the only player from the Wallabies that neutrals respect as a consistent player for the Wallabies atm.