SPIRO: Richard Graham's reign of error at the Reds should end

Richard Graham made the call that the Reds’ second half capitulation to the Crusaders, where they conceded six unanswered tries in the 40 minutes, was “disgraceful”.

“There are absolutely no excuses for that performance other than it lacked character and it lacked integrity.”

This is unfair. Why didn’t he admit that the Reds players also have been denied the coherent and effective coaching during his reign of error at the Reds, that might have provided the character and the integrity for the players to help them stop the Crusaders’ onslaught?

In the Graham analysis of the Red’s devastating defeat the buck apparently stops with the players.

The point here is that it is all very well Graham going on about how disgraceful the Reds’ performance was but why didn’t he cut to the chase: ultimately the coach has to carry the responsibility for the play of a team whom he has selected and coached.

It is not as though he inherited an inferior set of players. Many of the current team played in the marvellous squad that won the 2011 Super Rugby tournament.

Graham almost conceded some responsibility when he talked about how “we’ve let the organisation down badly, we’ve let the jersey down”. But, or so seems to me, his main criticism was of the players.

You don’t get anyone more Red-eyed than Greg Martin. At the end of the game, he told the television audience that the Reds management has to revisit the matter of the coach and that the board’s support for Graham needs to be taken away.

Aside from the dismal play of the Reds throughout this season, culminating in the thrashing at Christchurch, Martin had another argument to support his contention that the Richard Graham era at the Reds franchise must end: “The coach has lost the support of his players.”

I agree with this contention. In many decades of writing about rugby I have come to understand one basic truth. If the players have given up on the coach, the team is lost and can never recover until the coach is removed.

Now many readers on The Roar, especially avid Reds supporters, have accused me in the past, recent and distant, of having an objection to anything connected with the Reds. This is not true. I was thrilled by the play of Ewen McKenzie’s 2011 champions. But in the past, the Reds have tended to play ten-man rugby (a relic of the glory days of Paul McLean and later Michael Lynagh) and this style, in my opinion, is not a winning style in the modern era.

But to make the case that this is not old Spiro indulging in some Reds bashing, I will quote from Wayne Smith’s match report in The Australian of the Crusaders’ 58-17 victory over the Reds: “…it begs the question how much more evidence the Queensland Rugby Union board requires before it reaches the conclusion glaringly obvious to everyone else – that Graham’s position has become untenable.”

Will the Queensland Rugby Union board respond to this sort of tough love criticism from media commentators who are passionate about the Reds and are interested entirely in the success of the team?

I do not think so. And I’ll explain why I say that. When Graham was appointed to coach the Reds, replacing McKenzie who was promoted to coach the Wallabies, I wrote in The Roar that the appointment was wrong for several reasons.

The first reason was that Graham’s previous performance as head coach at the Western Force had been abysmal. He showed nothing at the Force that would suggest he had any chance of being successful at the Reds.

The Reds won five of their 16 matches with Graham as coach in 2014. This season the Reds have won two matches out of 11 played and are at the bottom of the table. The 2015 Reds have scored the least number of tries of any team (19) and have the worst ratio of points for and against (minus 172).

This poor record at the Force and now at the Reds is important to understand because successful coaches tend to have success throughout their careers, at the start in lower competitions and then as they rise through the various levels of rugby competitions to the highest levels.

Graham has never had any great success in his previous coaching stints. Selecting him for the Reds is rather like selecting a batsman who has never scored more than 30 in the first class match to open for Australia and expect him to score hundreds.

The second reason I offered to Roar readers was that I was dismayed at the lack of a transparent process involved in the appointment of Graham. There was too much suggestion, in my opinion, that the board was appointing a good mate rather than someone with the best coaching credentials.

This article received a slashing reply from John Eales who asserted that my contentions about the lack of proper governance procedures in the selection process was wrong.

A few weeks ago, however, Mark Ella in The Australian made a similar argument to mine about the lack of proper governance procedures in the appointment of Graham who, he insisted, should be replaced.

On Saturday, around 3pm, less than 24 hours after the debacle at Christchurch, the Queensland Rugby Union issued a media release titled: John Connolly joins St George Queensland Reds as a coaching consultant.

Now, as the release noted, Connolly has been a winning coach. His teams have won the Super Six (1992), the Super 10 (1994, 1995) and premierships with Stade Francais and Bath.

There is no suggestion in the statement that Connolly’s role at the Reds will be anything more than as a consultant. He has been out of full-time coaching at a high level, after his stint as the Wallaby coach in 2006 and 2007, for a long time.

I doubt whether he will be able to do much to turn the Reds around, no matter what systems and selections he promotes, while Graham remains as coach.

Sir John Kirwan had Sir Graham Henry, the winningest coach in the history of rugby, to help him in his first two years at the Blues. Not even Henry could prevent the disintegration of the Blues’ performance during the Kirwan years.

I get back to my basic point. If a coach hasn’t had much success or no success (as in the case of Graham and Henry) all the help in the world won’t be able to create a conversation to high success.

What about the case of the Jamie Joseph and the Highlanders, though?

Three seasons ago the same sort of review of the failed Highlanders’ programs and systems as what the Queensland Rugby Union is about to launch into the Reds was put in place. The review identified all sort of problems, many of which it seems have been resolved.

The Highlanders last year and this year have been a competitive and entertaining side.

Why can’t the Queensland Rugby Union review, with the insights provided by Connolly, result in the same sort of outcome for the Reds under Graham? Because Joseph is a much better coach than Graham, and a coach with some spectacular successes in his career, including a long run of victories with the New Zealand Maori All Blacks, a run that had a victory over Sir Clive Woodward’s 2005 British and Irish Lions side.

Another Australian Super Rugby coach who needs to prop up his position with some more victories and more positive play from his side is Force coach Michael Foley.

The Force are one place above the Reds at the bottom of the table. Like the Reds (and Blues) they have won only two matches. But they have won seven bonus points compared with the three won by the Reds.

Last year the Force won nine matches. The two wins this season have been, away and home, against the Waratahs, a team that Foley coached to a meagre four wins in 2012.

The Waratahs played a brain-dead game against the Force in losing to them 18-11 at Perth, in the upset of the round. I will confess that in the tipping contest I even picked a Waratahs win for my Powerplay.

But right from the start, there was something amiss with the Waratahs. They ran out in a light blue away jersey that was rather similar in colour with the more electric blue of the Force. Even the commentators noted that some of the Waratahs’ ensemble play broke down when they passed to the wrong players.

The Waratahs, too, allowed themselves to be out-muscled in the contact area throughout the match. At half-time the cameras showed an impassioned Michael Cheika calling for more effort (presumably) in the contact areas. The second half, though, was a repeat of the first.

I must say that I am never impressed when a coach, knowing that the cameras are videoing in the dressing rooms, turns on an Academy Award acting performance to instil some passion into the play of his team. The best coaches are almost invariably not histrionic. Think Graham Henry, Rod Macqueen, Steve Hansen and among the current Super Rugby coaches, Dave Rennie of the Chiefs.

Teams that are fired up with nothing but passion and no real plan to change things around, tend to lose their passion on the first contact that goes against them.

And some players seem to feel that expressing emotion and passion is the same as playing well. Nick Phipps, for instance, was at the referee, trying to pull swifties with illegal plays and neglected doing what he had to do, which was to clear the ball effectively and run from time to time to keep the swarming Force defence honest.

A better example of how to turn things around came during the Highlanders-Lions match at Johannesburg. At half-time, the Highlanders were leading 20-3. It seemed game over, even after only 40 minutes. But the Lions coaching staff brought on two running halves, Faf de Klerk and Elton Jantjies.

They ran the legs off the tiring Highlanders, unused to playing at altitude.

It is a pity that Cheika resorted to the rant rather than explaining some different tactics, and new players from the bench to implement them, to defeat a Force side that showed resilience and the tactics of making a nuisance of themselves, and not much more.

I would end this rather pessimistic article on a positive note to announce the emergence of a third Australian world-class coach to stand beside Cheika and Stephen Larkham: let’s hear it for Tony McGahan, the head coach of the Melbourne Rebels.

The Rebels have defeated the Crusaders and the Chiefs this season. And on Friday night they walloped the hapless Blues 42-22.

What is admirable about the Rebels is that they play as a team. They know the systems and the tactics, on defence and attack. They are smart. They are ruthless. And although they are probably out of contention for a finals spot, being in tenth place and on 29 points, they are actually only three points behind the Waratahs (32) and four points behind the Brumbies (33) but, like the Waratahs, with a game in hand in relation to the Brumbies.

As well as winning coaches having a record of winning throughout their careers – and McGahan has this – winning coaches also tend to produce champions from players who they might not have flourished in an environment created by a lesser coach.

The Rebels, in my view, and this is very much to McGahan’s credit, are creating the new great halves combination with Nick Stirzaker and Jack Debreczeni.

Just as Rod Macqueen created a Brumbies legacy on the George Gregan-Larkham halves combination, McGahan looks like doing the same for the Rebels with Stirzaker and Debreczeni.

They have been so impressive this season (and remember Debreczeni has only played 16 Super Rugby matches) and the play of the incumbent Wallaby halves particularly this round was so unimpressive, that Cheika, in my opinion, should seriously consider Stirzaker and Debreczeni (who can boot goals from his own half) for his Rugby World Cup squad.

So in a weekend of dire results for the Reds, the Waratahs and the Brumbies, there is the hope that some young champions are emerging to strengthen the Wallabies, sooner or later, and preferably sooner.