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So they’ve done it. Two games into a new season, the Queensland Rugby Union have made the decision they perhaps should’ve made in the middle of last year. They’re moving on from Richard Graham.
A mid-afternoon email gave the rugby world just 25 minutes’ notice of an imminent ‘significant announcement’.
‘Significant announcements’ are rarely good news. A new player arriving is generally a ‘significant recruitment announcement’; new sponsors are generally heralded with ‘significant sponsor announcement’. Significant announcements without specifics usually only mean one thing; someone is clearing out their desk.
And sure enough, yesterday afternoon it was Richard Graham. After two losses in the opening two rounds of the 2016 season, the trigger was pulled.
“Queensland Reds Head Coach Richard Graham has been released from the remainder of his contract with immediate effect,” the Queensland Rugby Union media release announced. Graham’s assistant coaches, Matt O’Connor and Nick Stiles will see out the season as “co-interim head coaches”.
Immediately, the questions began mounting.
Most notably, if two losses are enough to pull the trigger now, then how on earth did the Reds’ Coaching Review Panel last July decide that, “Richard was the best equipped candidate to perform the Reds Head Coach role for the 2016”?
The Reds told fans only last week on Facebook of the review process, “the Coaching Review Panel considered several applications of more than 25 coaches of varying backgrounds and experiences from local and international markets,” as well as conducting phone and face-to-face interviews before deciding the best man for the job was already holding the clipboard.
So what’s changed after two games? If Graham was the “best equipped candidate” as “unanimously approved by the Queensland Rugby Union Board” after a worldwide search, then what is so different just seven months and two rounds of a new season later?
And if the decision was so unanimous, why has it taken just weeks after the departure of now former Queensland Rugby Union chairman Rod McCall for the cracks in that decision to appear?
Queensland Rugby Union Executive General Manager, former Queensland and Wallabies centre Daniel Herbert yesterday spoke of an “emptiness” within the dressing room, a sure-fire sign that a coach’s days are numbered. But was the Reds’ dressing room really any ‘fuller’ at the end of last season?
O’Connor and Stiles both interviewed for the top job, and undoubtedly would have made submissions to the board during the process as to why they were a better candidate than Richard Graham, and how they would correct the clearly unhealthy situation that engulfed the Reds last season.
If O’Connor’s and Stiles’ submissions weren’t good enough, or weren’t convincing enough to win the job in the first place, then can they really be expected to be good enough for the remainder of the 2016 season?
Both men have already stated their interest in the top job, and both men obviously think they’re a better candidate than the other.
Both men have solid claims to the job, and both have decent resumes. O’Connor’s success in Europe can’t be ignored, but neither can Stiles’ dual NRC titles with Brisbane City and the familiarity he would enjoy with a significant portion of the playing group he’ll be now co-interimly head-coaching.
Can two candidates with obvious desires on the same position really ignore those desires, and pull together to resurrect even a skerrick of success in 2016?
And how exactly will “co-interim head coaches” work in practise?
How will “co-interim head coaches” make tough decisions? How will differences of opinion around selection or strategy or training work? Who will be the primary voice and who will actually get the message through to the players? How can recruitment plans for 2017 be made and then put into action if one guy thinks the other guy shouldn’t be part of the plan?
(And on that topic, did Wallabies captain Stephen Moore know something before making his decision to return home from 2017?)
Regarding the process for a permanent appointment, yesterday’s release stated, “the Queensland Rugby Union will commence a worldwide process to appoint a head coach for the 2017 Super Rugby season. It is likely that this process will take between 90 and 120 days once the Queensland Rugby Union formally goes to market. Both O’Connor and Stiles will be invited to be part of this open process.”
So less than a year after a worldwide process explored the credentials of at least 25 candidates – including O’Connor and Stiles – and then reappointed Graham, that process will be repeated for the same purpose: to find the best possible candidate to take the Queensland Reds forward.
But what now of 2016? There will quite likely be some element of ‘bounce’ – lest we forget the tipping phenomena regarding sacked coaches – but what is a pass mark for the rest of this season? And if that pass mark is achieved and the players do properly respond to the curious dynamic of co-interim head coaches, will it have been O’Connor or Stiles who really righted the ship?
Though the Reds have at least made a decision that just about everyone in rugby thought would happen sooner rather than later, this latest chapter in the ongoing saga has, in my mind at least, only left more questions rather than provide clear answers.
Any success the Reds do manage in 2016 will almost be in spite of the situation as presented.
And what of the fans? How many of the “I’m not going until Graham is sacked” are now scrambling to renew their memberships? It’s a serious question; I’ll be genuinely interested to here from any Reds fans who had previously aired their grievances around the coaching situation.
Perhaps the perfect fullstop on this current episode was the simple spellcheck quirk that slipped through the cracks in nominating the venue for the significant announcement yesterday: “Media wall behind the western grandstand, Baltimore Stadium.”
Completely innocent, of course. But so simultaneously illustrative.