Raelene Castle won't shake up Rugby Australia - yet

It is HIGHLY unlikely she will do anything positive. She left Canterbury in bad shape. If it wasn't her fault then it was her Boards. If the Canterbury Board were therefore able to prevail over her, what chance has she got with those bunch of walkers that make up the ARU Board?

Castle cannot force Clyne to go, it has to come from continuous pressure from the rugby fan base. There is no way Australia Rugby can move forward with Lying Clyne in control. It is obvious.

DaveR - I understand your sentiments and completely agree with those sentiments. However, a CEO can't restructure a Board. The CEO works for the Board and carries out its policies, directions and decisions. The RA Board will, therefore, call Raelene Castle's shots.

CAMERON CLYNE IS THE NEMESIS OF RUGBY UNION IN AUSTRALIA. WITH HIM THERE IS NO UNION. JUST BOARDROOM GAMES, LAWYER DRIVEN TACTICS AND GROSS MISMANAGEMENT. RUGBY LOVERS DESPISE HIM. IT IS SIMPLE, FOR RAELENE TO HAVE A CHANCE: CLYNE MUST GO .

I dont know about u piru but i wont be going to any test match in perth the earu or rugby eastern australia can get stuffed they wont get a dollar of mine

Geoff, clearly you do not understand that this is not about axing the Force. I am from South Africa and can tell you that I have never been treated with less respect than how the the ARU/RA treated me as Western Australian rugby supporters in 2017. I can easily get over the axing of the Force, but not the lies, the manipulation behind the scenes, the lack of an acknowledgment that there is an issue, the refusal to meet and explain the situation, that there is not attempt to soften the blow or compromise and the lack of accountability at ARU/RA Board level. Castle's "draw the sand and move on" is another insult and re-iterate the attitude that WA rugby supporters are second hand citizens in their own country! What is even worst is to watch how they blow the money saved with a 12.5% pay increase and waste $20 million on rebranding and moving their headquarters. At least in South Africa some acknowledged that there was a problem, apologised and is trying to fix it. Was this really worth it? People like you and Clarke that just want to move on are like some whites in South Africa, you do not get it! You need to do more than move on after what you have done. It will take at least a generation before the ARU/RA may recover their license to operate in WA . My question to the Australian rugby public is - was this really worth it?

So those words can never be used again? Despite the fact that they perfectly describe what needs to happen?

mate take some concrete pills and harden up. "100 hundred generations" surely your joking or need to take things into perspective, no one died, to ask for "Yup, let’s have a truth and reconciliation session" is disgusting when you think about SA and why they had a truth and reconciliation session.

Yeah saw that well said Hans.

That's all well and good Piru however the RA and parasites working for them never paid attention to WA, made up lies and assumptions about the game there (just have read of the nonsense spouted by Anthony French about the Brumbies and Force in the minutes of the infamous meeting on August 18th 2016) and have dismissed the hard work that has gone in to building the game in the state since the Force were launched in 2005.

I'm betting there are hundreds if not thousands in the same boat mate

I didn’t renew my Tahs Membership after the 2016 season, simply because not one person bothered to contact me regarding renewing. Not even a lousy email let alone a text or phone call. Meanwhile the Rabbitohs must have followed me up half a dozen times and I didn’t think twice about renewing. Anyway good luck Raelene, supporting you all the way in what must be, one of Australian sports toughest jobs.

t's not just the rugby fans in WA...... Excellent feedback today from Hans Sauer, President of Rugby WA: "It would be naïve for Ms Castle to believe that we will ever be able to forgive or forget. Naturally we don't have any axe to grind with her, the Slate can never be wiped clean. For the next 100 generations 2017 will always remain as the darkest period in Australian Rugby, where the word UNION was ignored, where the custodians of the game trashed the ethos, the centuries old worldwide tradition of respect, transparency, collaboration and trust. Where the managing organisation showed total lack of leadership. Ms Castle, we don't hold you responsible, but your organisation we do. You must as your first act to move forward is to hold a reconciliation meeting. You and your board need to hear from us how the decisions and actions of 2017 destroyed aspirations, trust and support. It's not for your board or organisation to tell us to get over it, it's not for you to tell us to suck it up and move on. Our feelings are controlled by us. Just as you can never make us feel happy or sad. Your board needs to sit up and listen to what their actions led to. Similarly I imagine most other unions have similar points to make. Yup, let's have a truth and reconciliation session, let us feel that your board hears us, until that time they do not have our respect. The ARU board and Bill Pulver will go down in history as the board that betrayed their own, destroyed their children, acted outside the ethos of our code. Long after we are all watching or playing the game in heaven, this dark period and those involved will be remembered for all of the wrong reasons. Well may your board say they cut us adrift for the greater good of the game. The process was unconscionable and may even be proven to have been illegal, you never engaged with us, the Force team playing under the Rebels banner may beat a kiwi team in 2018, they may even top the Australian Conference, but they will not win the competition."

Shek is right on the money.

There is no correlation between dropping the Force and the performance of the Australia conference. After all Australian teams won super rugby twice while the Force were competing and you literally cannot do better than that. Cutting the Force based on on bad season is as silly as expanding based on one good season. What we will see unfortunately is a drying up of WA talent which will ultimately hit the Wallabies and kill off our nations 3rd biggest rugby nursery.

Or what she hired to protect the Board and focus on woman's rugby? She has no powerbase to do anything more! Her talk about stability, not making changes and WA needs to suck it up is clear that she has no mandate to do anything more and no powerbase to change her mandate.

Maybe you should look at Eales, who once had a backbone, as well as Clyne. When asked after I believe the final Bledisloe, what the pass mark for the end of season tour was, instead of saying "winning all tests", against teams we should beat (including England), his response was we need to see consistency in performances. We certainly got consistency losing against teams we shouldn't, with mediocrity the only consistency. Was his attitude the same when he won 2 RWCs, no it wasn't, he has clearly lost his love for the game, and it is about time he resigned and continued with being a dismal director in other industries.

From WA I don't give a sh*t about rugby in Australia , my kids no longer play and have moved across to AFL with my blessing

There's no reason we can't be both cautious and hopeful however aren't you sick of the doom and gloom? I sure am

Whereas I think those endless two year cycles of rose-tinted glasses before illusions shatter and change is demanded contribute significantly, as the sport does another circuit of the drain hole. We'd be in a better place if people were a bit less willing to accept wooly mission statements and fuzzy numbers as confirmation of their optimistic hopes, and instead demanded real details, plans, evidence and accountability. The story changes depending on what narrative they are trying to sell, and no-one really has any real idea of where things are actually at other than that these guys definitely don't got dis.