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The new Queensland Rugby Union chairman Damien Frawley, at the end of February, told the media that he would not rush into any decision about the future of the then coach, Richard Graham.
Then after two losses by the Reds in their first two matches of Super Rugby 2016, Graham was sacked. The two assistant coaches, Matt O’Connor and Nick Stiles, were appointed co-coaches until the end of the season.
Frawley’s initial reluctance to sack Graham seems to be followed by a continued reluctance to aggressively seek out his replacement as the new coach of the Reds for the 2017 Super Rugby season.
As both O’Connor and Stiles have intimated that they want the head coach job, the implication is that a decision is not going to be made at least until some time in August, if not later.
Under the new post-Graham coaching regime, a sort of rugby equivalent of the Roman two-consuls system, the Reds toughed out a loss to the Rebels, after that team had made the arduous, energy-sapping journey back to Melbourne from South Africa.
The season before, after the Reds had endured a coaching shake-up with John Connolly brought in to help Graham, the Reds beat the Rebels 46-29. This was seen, a little later when losses continued, as a dead cat bounce.
But there was not even a dead cat bounce for the Graham-less Reds last weekend.
So how is the search for a new Reds coach going? Has it even started? What sort of qualities and experience is the new coach expected to have? Will there be any input into the process by the ARU?
To be honest, there are no answers available to these questions. And in my opinion this, in itself, points to a collapse of sound management at the Reds franchise.
A couple of names have been touted – Robbie Deans and Tony McGahan.
But why would Deans want to take over a failing Australian Super Rugby franchise after his disgraceful treatment by many influential members of the Australian rugby community? Remember Greg Martin’s ‘Trojan Horse’ accusation.
Deans has already declared, anyway, that he is not interested in coaching a Super Rugby side.
Mark Ella has raised the possibility of Tony McGahan switching from the Rebels to the Reds. But, as Wayne Smith has pointed out, McGahan was re-contracted last June to a long term deal. “While he is understood to be interested in coaching the Reds down the track, the timing looks wrong at present.”
What we haven’t had from the Reds administration is any detailed indication about how they intend to go about selecting a coach to lead the Reds out of their present dire situation.
Now look at how the Highlanders have approached their task of selecting a new head coach after Jamie Joseph, the current coach, announced that he will step down at the end of the Super Rugby season to take over the job of coaching Japan’s Brave Blossoms.
On Tuesday a detailed media release was put out headed ‘Highlanders Search For New Head Coach Begins’.
The release made the point that by mid-year (before the end of the Super Rugby season!) an appointment will be made: “We want to cast the net far and wide and now is the time to be in the market as the Japanese season has concluded and the northern hemisphere season is drawing to a close.”
And what sort of candidate are the Highlanders looking for? “There’s a very strong sense of community in our Highlander family and we know that it’s a fantastic place to live and work. We’re looking forward to having someone new to add more value to that.”
In other words, they are not even looking at their current assistant coaches.
Tony Brown, for instance, has already declared that he needs more coaching experience before taking over the head coach job.
In my view, the Reds should have encouraged O’Connor and Stiles to take a similar approach to that of Brown. The point is that O’Connor and Stiles are intimately connected with the present predicament of the Reds. It beggars belief that either of them have the ability right now to turn things around for the Reds.
I am amazed that in all the discussion about a new head coach for the Reds, no one has raised David Nucifora.
Nucifora coached the Brumbies to a Super Rugby title, and then suffered the indignity of senior players snubbing his achievement.
He has been the High Performance Manager for the Ireland Rugby Union during one of the great periods of Irish rugby which includes a rare Grand Slam.
He is a Queenslander, so has Reds blood running in his veins.
A winner and a Queenslander. What more could the Reds franchise want in a new coach?
One final point about how a selection process should be run. The last sentence of the Highlanders media release reads: “The Highlanders will work with New Zealand Rugby throughout the recruitment process.”
If the powers that be at the New Zealand Rugby Union decide that a certain candidate should get the job, for the benefit of the rugby present and future in New Zealand, including the All Blacks, that person will get the job. And the Highlanders will be happy to accept this coach, even if he is not their first choice.
Essentially, though, the Highlanders and the New Zealand Rugby Union are likely to agree on the new coach.
This sort of system, where the interests of the franchise and the rugby nation are integrated, does not seem to apply apparently in Australia.
I don’t believe, for instance, that it is in the long term interests of Australian rugby to have non-Australians like Daryl Gibson (the Waratahs coach) given the head coaching job at an Australian Super Rugby franchise. Gibson has already expressed a hope that one day he might coach the All Blacks.
The importation of a non-Australian coach worked to a certain extent with Jake White. But the ARU made it clear that White was not going to go on and coach the Wallabies. White scuttled off to South Africa.
David Nucifora’s stint as head coach of the Blues was similarly unsuccessful. He was the first and I reckon probably the last for some time non-New Zealander coaching a Super Rugby side.
Certainly, there hasn’t been a non-New Zealander Super Rugby head coach since. I doubt whether the Highlanders or the Crusaders (another New Zealand franchise destined to have a new coach for 2017) will appoint a non-New Zealander.
Getting back to the Reds, the appointment and re-appointment last season of Richard Graham was tied up by a group of good old boys of Queensland rugby. I have never seen any acknowledgement by these good old boys that they made a terrible mistake with this decision.
I am not sure, either, that any intervention by the ARU board or chief executive would have stymied the Graham appointment. When I criticised the appointment of Graham as a good old boys stitch-up, John Eales (then and now a member of the ARU board) wrote a forceful article on The Roar taking me to task for the argument I was making.
So in this context, I endorse these statements from the great Mark Ella which were made in The Australian in an article headed, ‘Rugby still hasn’t got over the blight of mateship over merit’.
“The ARU must become more involved in the appointment of Super Rugby coaches, as New Zealand Rugby Union does in New Zealand… If a Super Rugby coach is not regarded as a potential Wallabies coach, then he should not be in the job.”
Right on!
I have nominated David Nucifora as the next Reds coach. I am interested if there are any other candidates, according to The Roar rugby tragics, who so accurately fulfill Mark Ella’s requirements for the job of coaching the Reds.