Rugby still hasn’t got over the blight of mateship over merit

The Richard Graham saga was a classic example of the culture of mateship over merit all over Australia.

Queensland Reds coach Richard Graham who was sacked after back-to-back losses. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

The Richard Graham saga was a classic example of the culture of mateship over merit, not just in Queensland rugby, but all over Australia.

The debate over if and when the Queensland Reds should have sacked Graham overlooked the fact he should never have been appointed in the first place.

I personally feel sorry for ­Graham, whom I coached in the Australian sevens team in the late 1990s. He was a very talented ­player with a wicked sense of humour that always kept the team in good spirits.

But over the past few years at the Force and more recently at the Reds, I can’t remember seeing that infectious Graham smile, which made me think that he was way out of his depth as a head coach.

Graham’s poor record as head coach at the Force did not warrant his appointment as Ewen McKenzie’s successor at the Reds, one of the plum coaching jobs in Australian rugby.

But Graham had friends in high places at Ballymore, which was how he managed to get the gig in the first place. Sections of the Reds hierarchy were looking after their mate rather than the team.

Now with Graham’s influential friends either gone or going, the Reds could not wait any longer to pull the trigger after the team’s ­dismal performance against his old team the Force last Saturday night, losing 22-6 at home.

Jobs for the boys is a hangover from rugby’s amateur days and it remains one of the biggest problems in the game in administration, coaching and the selection of players.

As an old publicist of mine once told me: “It’s not what you know and it’s not who you know, it’s what you know about who you know.”

This kind of cronyism has to stop because a more professional outlook is required if we are ever going to be consistently at the top of the world rankings.

The ARU must become more involved in the appointment of Super Rugby coaches, as the NZRU does in New Zealand.

Coaching in Super Rugby should be the main pathway to coaching the Wallabies, so the ARU has a vital interest in ensuring the head coaches of the five franchises are capable of stepping up to the international arena, if not straight away, then down the track. If a Super Rugby coach is not regarded as a potential Wallabies coach, then he should not be in the job.

The Reds will now do what they should have done when McKenzie left — conduct a worldwide search for the best coach they can find.

They should also consider current interim coaches Matt O’Connor and Nick Stiles but I think they should also look at the man ­opposing them tonight, Melbourne Rebels coach Tony ­McGahan.

McGahan is close friends with Graham and may not want to take over his mate’s team, which is fair enough, but he is a Queenslander and he should put his own state first.

The ARU needs to develop coaches who can succeed Wallabies coach Michael Cheika and, along with Brumbies coach Stephen Larkham, McGahan would be one of the main contenders given his background as a former Wallabies assistant.

But the ARU needs to see if McGahan can coach a good team to success, like Larkham is doing at the Brumbies and as Cheika did at the Waratahs, to assess his potential as a Wallabies coach.

McGahan was the assistant coach of Irish team Munster when they won the Heineken Cup, but he did not achieve quite the same success in the head role.

With Graham gone, the Reds will be able to rebuild pretty quickly with former players likely to return and new players willing to come as long as they feel the right change in the air.

The Reds should always be one of Australia’s best teams and they deserve a coach who has the ability to take them all the way.

The ARU will never know if McGahan is a potential Wallabies coach by his work with a virtual development team in Melbourne, but he could prove himself at a rejuvenated Reds.

You would think the Rebels will start favourites against the Reds at AAMI Park in Melbourne tonight, even though they have endured the ex­cruciating travel back from South Africa where they kept their winless record in place, going down to the Bulls in Pretoria last weekend 45-25.

But it is funny how teams tend to lift after a change of coach and a Reds’ dead cat bounce could be the biggest threat to the Rebels.