The town planner who can fix Australian rugby: Wallabies great who RA, Eddie must hope will take key role

“Rugby is no different from you building your own home,” the former grand slam-winning Wallabies coach Alan Jones wrote in 2017.

“Now, if you don’t spend money on the floor, there’s no point in building a roof.

“If, on the other hand, you want to spend all of the money on the roof, and there’s no decent floor, the roof will collapse.

“We’ve got to go back to the floor of the game.”

So, who better to help build Australian rugby up once again than a town planner like Ewen McKenzie, who knows the landscape of the sport from top to bottom?

Wallabies coach Ewen McKenzie speaks to the media during an Australian Wallabies training session at Kinross Wolaroi School on August 5, 2014 in Orange, Australia. (Photo by Matt King/Getty Images)

Three decades ago, Eddie Jones and McKenzie would slog it out in the gym together and, after sweating it out in the suburbs surrounding Randwick, would talk endlessly about the tactics of rugby.

Although they had other careers in mind, their deep-thinking nature would see them head down the path of coaching.

“From a strategy side, I played with Eddie Jones and, at the time he was the vice-principal of the International Grammar School, I remember talking to him, we used to go and do gym work together and ring each other up and we’d talk tactics and stuff like that,” McKenzie reflected last year during a rare interview with former Randwick teammate Simon Poidevin, as the former World Cup winner was inducted into the club’s hall of fame.

“It’s a bit ironic that we kicked on. He was the coach of the Brumbies, and I became an assistant coach there and then moved on to the Wallabies and we kicked on.

“Rugby affords the opportunity to have a very strategic perspective on the game and that’s the bit I probably enjoyed the most, the many different ways you could win a game.

“I learned that playing the game with skill. When you played at Randwick, you played with skill and used skills. When you play other teams, it is about brawn and so getting a mix with between that. I always enjoyed as a coach working out a strategy to win.”

But for almost a decade McKenzie has been lost to the game, having shocked the nation by resigning following a highly controversial episode in Australian rugby’s history in the spring of 2014.

Can Eddie Jones (R) lure Ewen McKenzie back to Australian rugby? (Photo: Getty Images)

McKenzie has barely been seen nor heard since telling the Wallabies he had coached his last Test inside the Suncorp Stadium sheds other than an appearance with the Galloping Greens and Harlequins, the club that the rugby giant fondly remembers playing at before moving to Sydney.

Since then, McKenzie has gone into the field he expected to move into before being given an opportunity to work alongside Jones in 1998.

“I only got involved in rugby because I loved it,” McKenzie told Poidevin.

“But I did the university degree in parallel because that was interesting to me, and my intentions were to get on with that. I did do that, but an assistant coaching role came up with the Brumbies and I took that and that took me off on a 20-year tangent.

“I’m back doing town planning. I basically do a lot of development work and work with a lot of different councils. It’s hard work. You need to be strategic in that place as well. I enjoy that.”

But having first asked McKenzie to join him at the Brumbies and next at the Wallabies for their 2003 World Cup campaign, could Jones be the perfect figure to lure the lost figure back into the Australian rugby fold?

Ewen McKenzie has barely been sighted since 2014. But can Eddie Jones and Phil Waugh bring the rugby great back into the fold? (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Rugby Australia is in the process of trying to rebuild the game, with new CEO Phil Waugh, who served as McKenzie’s captain in 2008 as the Waratahs made the Super Rugby final, on the hunt to find a new Head of National High Performance Programs.

While RA recently advocated the position, McKenzie would be a savvy and shrewd candidate.

Indeed, it’s the exact role Jones said would suit his former teammate and coaching colleague.

“He could be the high performance general manager,” Jones said in 2014 following McKenzie’s resignation. “He has won a World Cup as a player. He has been an assistant coach winning the Super Rugby competition. He has won the Super competition as a head coach.

“They shouldn’t lose Ewen to Australian rugby. They have to keep his intellectual capacity. He would be perfect [in high performance]. He is a strategic thinker.”

Whether McKenzie would consider it remains to be seen.

But for a man who lost faith and trust in the previous Australian Rugby Union leadership and fell out of love with the game as a result, Jones and Waugh would be two figures who would recognise McKenzie’s lofty standing in the game and the contribution he could still provide the game.

Just as importantly, all three figures know how each other work.

(L-R) Waratahs coach Ewen McKenzie, Phil Waugh and Josh Valentine wait during the Waratahs team photo at Moore Park January 16, 2007 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Mark Nolan/Getty Images)

This wouldn’t be unchartered territory for any of the trio, but McKenzie would be the perfect figure to work alongside Jones, allowing the coach to focus on the team while providing the structure at all levels of the game to help him lead the nation’s charge.

McKenzie would surely be backed by all the states too, having come from Victoria and worked his way up from club rugby to play for NSW and the Brumbies while developing into one of the world’s best tight-head props.

His rich understanding and coaching prowess, having worked at the Brumbies and Wallabies under Jones, before leading the Waratahs to two Super Rugby finals and winning one with Queensland in 2011, as well as going on to coach the national team, reveals a person with three decades of rugby intellectual property Australian rugby currently is missing out on.

It’s an aspect former Wallaby Ben Alexander touched on when he tweeted that one of Rugby Australia’s first moves following Jones’ return should be to repair the wounds with McKenzie.

“Get Ewen McKenzie back to coach coaches,” Alexander wrote.

“A great servant of the game and how he was treated was a disgrace.

“Would love to see RA put the olive branch out and get him back to mentor young coaches. He has a lifetime of Rugby experience. Why aren’t we tapping into it?”

Several players have spoken about McKenzie’s rich understanding of the game and ability to put a plan in place to allow them to succeed.

“Back in 2010 and 2011, Ewen McKenzie and Jimmy McKay understood that guys like myself, Quade and Digby Ioane were naturally quite instinctive football players. So, they did really well to design a game plan around the way that we saw the game and played the game,” Genia wrote in a column for The Roar in June.

“We didn’t like to be shackled by too much structure, so it was very simple. We had a call. The call was ‘broncos’ just hitting up in the midfield and ‘cowboys’ was hitting out wide, and essentially the forwards worked the same way and then it was basically myself and Quade, who off the cuff made the decision if we wanted to go the same way or go back the other way.

“A lot of that was determined by whether we got over the gain line or were behind the gain line.

“That was amazing for our growth as football players in terms of understanding the game.”

Wallabies coach Ewen McKenzie walks off the pitch ahead of the Wallabies’ Test against Argentina at Estadio Malvinas Argentinas on October 4, 2014 in Mendoza. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

As a World Cup winner and international coach, McKenzie would be able to represent Australia on an international stage and be respected globally.

But unlike Jones, who faces the media weekly and is now the front-man for Australian rugby, McKenzie wouldn’t need to be as public as his former teammate.

Just as David Nucifora is the mover and shaker in Irish rugby calling the shots after fellow Australian Steve Anderson, who is currently in Queensland, put the wheels in motion for the World Cup-winning Wallaby to refine and develop their high performance system, McKenzie could play a similar role in developing coaches and players behind the scenes as well as ensuring the pathways has a clear line to the top.

Australia’s IRFU performance director David Nucifora has led Ireland to the top of the World Rugby rankings. (Photo By Brendan Moran/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

It’s something Ireland, whose Performance Director Nucifora, who was chewed up and spat out by the Australian rugby system that wasn’t prepared to face hard truths in the professional era, has benefitted from with the Emerald Isle enjoying sustained success as evident by their rise to the top of the World Rugby standings on the eve of another World Cup.

McKenzie, too, has seen the best and worst of Australian rugby.

But Rugby Australia can only hope that Jones and Waugh can strike the right notes to lure McKenzie back to the fold.

If they do, it could prove to be one of the most significant moves since the game turned professional.