Key sponsor Harvey Norman pulls the pin on Super Rugby

Ousted Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan has turned on his former colleagues after the game suffered a crippling blow.

Hamish McLennan, Michael Hooper and Eddie Jones.

Rugby Australia has taken another potentially fatal blow with news a multimillion-dollar sponsorship deal will not be renewed.

The beleaguered sport has been going through death by a thousand cuts, the once-mighty code buckling under the weight of a poorly performing national team and a floundering domestic competition.

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The trophy cabinet is bare, television ratings are bottoming out and we haven’t even mentioned Eddie Jones yet.

So the news first reported by The Australian that Harvey Norman is jumping ship couldn’t have come at a worse time.

Hamish McLennan, Michael Hooper and Eddie Jones.

Jones’ disastrous 10-month tenure back in charge of the Wallabies put the blowtorch on Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan.

McLennan was the man that led the decision to sack Dave Rennie in a World Cup year and rush Jones back into the role he last held in 2005.

Jones then picked a hugely inexperienced side for the 2023 World Cup, casting aside the likes of Michael Hooper, Bernard Foley and Quade Cooper, as the Wallabies failed to get out of the group stage for the first time ever.

The culling of ex-skipper Hooper was the biggest surprise, with the 32-year-old recently opting to switch to rugby sevens, named in the Australian squad this week in a bid to compete in next year’s Olympic Games in Paris.

McLennan, meanwhile, was belatedly sacked by the Rugby Australia board this week and that was the key piece in Harvey Norman’s decision not to renew its naming-rights sponsorship of Super Rugby.

Jones opted to freeze out stalwarts like Quade Cooper (left) and Michael Hooper, while Cadbury are understandably nervous.

“The Harvey Norman contract with Rugby Australia expires at the end of December, the decision has been taken not to renew,” a Harvey Norman company spokesperson said.

The article states the retail giant has already pumped around $5 million into the code.

McClennan also took a shot at the board for losing Harvey Norman’s sponsorship.

“Look at what the boneheads have done,” McClennan told the Sydney Morning Herald.

“They are arrogant and dopey.”

Another major sponsor walking away would be an enormous concern for Rugby Australia chief executive Phil Waugh and the board.

Cadbury, the key sponsors of the Wallabies, are also said to be “deeply concerned” by McLennan’s demise in the role.

With talk of more bloodletting of the board being on the cards, incoming chairman Daniel Herbert and Waugh have a heck of a battle on their hands turning the sport around.