#BoldandtheBrumbies saga ends: No more excuses on the field

Well, it’s finally over, sort of. The protracted and increasingly absurd backroom and courtroom stoush between the Brumbies board and now-former CEO Michael Jones ended on the weekend, with Jones accepting a deal to walk away from the club on Saturday night.

And like a lot of things the Brumbies have got wrong over the last six weeks, confirmation of this came through around five minutes before fulltime in Invercargill, which you might recognise as the venue for the Highlanders-Brumbies match. And I say you might recognise it, because I can only assume that whoever hit ‘send’ on the email didn’t have the TV on at the time.

As it happens, my mail is the board offer to Jones was agreed to much earlier in the day, but for reasons that remain as murky as most of the major issues within this whole saga, Jones didn’t sign the paperwork until Saturday evening. And evidently, the announcement was made before the ink had a chance to dry and before Jones had a chance to pull another rabbit from his hat.

Signature. Send email. Oh, look, the game’s still on…

Before I move on from this episode – and believe me when I say I really, really want to move on from this episode – there’s a few things that need to be said.

Let’s be clear that there are quite clearly a lot of questions surrounding the Brumbies’ move from the former South Canberra Bowling Club site to their new base at the University of Canberra that still require answers. They might have finally shut Michael Jones up, but the Brumbies board cannot be so naïve to think those questions suddenly go away.

We still need to know why the Griffith sale came in at nearly ten million dollars lower than expectation at the time. We still need to know why the amount put forward for the new UC facility came in two million dollars higher than initially announced. This, coupled with million-dollar-plus losses in 2014 and 2015 is the reason the stated $4 million community rugby fund was never created; they’d run out of money within two years.

The AFP investigation still needs to run its logical course, though my fear now is that even if it does, nothing will be uncovered. The Board, after going to such lengths to shut the bloke up asking the awkward questions, are hardly going to go out of their way to hand over any new information the investigators may require.

As I wrote a month ago, this is now well on its way to a very typical Australian rugby resolution.

The 2016 Annual Report will – or should – at least detail just how much of the projected profit this ridiculous chapter has cost the club. If the Brumbies finish even slightly in the black, I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Jones made two ultimately fatal errors in all of this. The more he fought in court to keep his job, the more he made the whole thing about him, instead of making it about uncovering the truth. The ACT Supreme Court had even found in his favour, that he was entitled to protection under whistle-blower provisions, yet he managed to keep digging himself into a deeper hole.

And instigating investigations into the workplace behaviour of a couple of the most respected players in the club was never going to end well for him. Even if he wasn’t responsible for that investigation becoming public – and I can’t imagine he was silly enough to be the leak – as soon as it came out, that was his time done. If his position wasn’t already untenable before, it certainly was once he’d dragged the players into it.

In summary, Jones probably did hold the high moral ground in all this, but by the end, there was just no way he could continue as CEO.

And the form of the team on the field over the last month or so suggests that it was beginning to have an effect. There would be only so many times coach and captain and playing group could insist that they weren’t focussing on the off-field issues before they subconsciously started thinking about it.

Before the thing broke – and I can’t believe I haven’t labelled it ‘Brumbygate’ before – the side had won four of their first five games, including a win over the Cheetahs in South Africa while they did genuinely remain isolated from what was going on back at home.

In those first five games, the Brumbies had scored 19 tries themselves while only conceding ten, at an average score of 30-18.

Since getting back home and being unable to avoid the rumours, the Brumbies have won only one of the last four games, and have had their first bye, too. They’ve also scored just nine tries while letting in 15; 11 of them to the Chiefs and Crusaders in what were consecutive record losing margins at home. The average score over the last month reads 18 points to 33, and they’ve shelled what was at one point in the opening rounds a five-point lead in the Australian conference.

So what’s changed?

Well, for one thing, they’re badly missing Ita Vaea’s go-forward. Big Ita didn’t often crack ten carries per game, but more often than not got past the gain line, providing quick ball for the next phase. Since he was forced into retirement, the Brumbies have barely dented opposition defences. It was notable on the weekend that David Pocock carried more than any other player, but he’s never been a big metre-maker. Pocock and the next best, young Tom Staniforth, carried 31 times between them and averaged less than two feet per carry.

And I tend to agree with Spiro’s point yesterday that the Brumbies’ backs are playing too deep currently. I suspect that’s linked to the lack of platform from the forwards, and I do wonder now if it’s time to switch Christian Lealiifano and Matt Toomua in midfield. Toomua has been ineffective at 12 in the last fortnight, and was replaced in both games. I mentioned last week that I can’t recall the last time Toomua was dragged when uninjured.

If Toomua was back at 10, he would at least straighten the Brumbies attack before Lealiifano provides the width from 12. Lealiifano at the moment appears to be playing too laterally first up, meaning that by the time Toomua and Tevita Kuridrani are trying to make ground in midfield, the defence is all over them; it’s quite likely a factor in why Kuridrani has looked off the pace, and Malakai Fekitoa certainly didn’t give him an inch in Invercargill.

The first half should have told them that they can have more success carrying out of their own half instead of relying on a kicking game that is severely lacking distance, too. And the only thing worse than a short kicking game is a short kicking game with no kick chase.

They’ve got a big week ahead, now, the Brumbies. Finally, the spotlight will be fully on them again, except that in their current form, they may not want that. But there can be no more excuses for them if they want to feature in the playoffs this season.

The rapid rise of the Waratahs shows there is plenty to play for in the Australian conference, and if the Brumbies don’t sort out their issues, they’ll be left rueing what should be a serious tilt at another Super Rugby title.

Brumbygate is over. But they now need to rescue their season before that horse bolts, too.