Let’s hope in time Raelene Castle is paid the respect she deserves

It is hardly surprising that rugby in Australia has lost its moral compass, indeed its very soul.

Everyone says they want what is best for rugby. So did Raelene Castle, who on Thursday quit as Rugby Australia chief executive. Picture: AAP

What with the right thing being done for the wrong reason and the wrong thing being done for the right reason, it is hardly surprising that rugby in Australia has lost its moral compass, indeed its very soul.

Raelene Castle didn’t set out to be such a polarising character. Her preferred style is to remain in the background, working away diligently, so it is singularly poignant that by the end she became the most heavily scrutinised and criticised official in Australian sporting history.

Other administrators blaze briefly across the heavens before crashing in a ball of fire. Castle was like a bomber operating on one engine, trapped in the searchlights and constantly being pounded by flak, year after year after year. It was unrelenting. Was it any wonder that eventually she cried out: “Where’s my parachute?”

She faced an issue that world sport has never had to contend with — a prominent athlete espousing views that placed him and the sport on a collision course with its major financial backers. The world watched in fascinated horror as Australian rugby plunged headlong down the slope into areas where no sport had ever ventured. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion. It was like a movie of a train smash but in three unmissable parts — Israel Folau: the Prequel; Israel Folau: the Main Event; and Israel Folau: the Aftermath.

Every other sporting administrator was wiping his or her brow in relief as Castle wrestled with this hydra-headed monster. There was no “right” answer. Either she risked losing sponsors or she risked losing a solid chunk of the sport’s fan base. There was no way of keeping one without losing the other.

She may not have been the only administrator ever to have to deal with a rogue coach but there is no doubt that she attempted to bring some order to the Michael Cheika era. She alone in the Rugby Australia hierarchy had the courage to take him on. She wanted him gone a year out from the World Cup. It was the board which decided Cheika would stay.

So those mindless critics who blame her for presiding over Australia’s slump from third in the world to seventh would be far better advised to direct their fire at the coach and the players.

There may be some who will point an accusing finger at Paul McLean and ask why he, as chairman, didn’t talk her out of her decision to parachute out of the burning plane. For starters, he didn’t see it coming, even though he would have been derelict in his duty if he had not been at least considering terminating her, purely to give Rugby Australia some rest from the remorseless media attacks.

Yet there probably was also some relief that she had decided to act herself. Whatever one thinks of the Rugby Australia board — both in its current configuration and its previous iteration — it is and was made up of individuals, most of whom genuinely cared for Castle.

As McLean explained on Friday, Castle could and did run through broken glass to spare the board from criticism. Not only was this her job but it was one she was always happy to do — while the board was giving her their full support. But more and more current and former directors spoke to me of their concern at how she was putting up with that pressure, month after month, year after year. In the end, if she hadn’t taken the decision to quit to protect herself, they would have taken it for her.

Of course she made mistakes and she has admitted as much. Mostly, however, she inherited an organisation that was running out of money, running out of friends in the wake of the decision to axe the Western Force and running out of options. Yet somehow she kept it all functioning. Mostly, however, she was a convenient scapegoat and now that she has gone and McLean is preparing to leave, one wonders who the critics can possibly blame now. Or will they, like the Donald Trumps of the world, keep harking back to the Barack Obamas.

One of the more overlooked comments of the week, but one which has gained in credence, was the line from John Eales that “everyone wants what is best for Australian rugby”. That sounds vaguely vomit-inducing and yet it is true in almost every instance. Everyone does want what is best for the game, the 10 captains who chose to sign the protest letter, the 20 or so who didn’t, the kids praying for an end to the lockdown so they can start playing again, the board members working around the clock to get everything in place for when the action resumes.

Whether by accident or design, the dissidents are getting their way. Fifty per cent of directors have gone and there are definitely banana skins under the likes of Hayden Rorke and John Lewis, so perhaps the dissidents could lower the volume of their calls for a complete overthrow of the board because it is actually happening.

Castle, too, wanted what was best for the game. It was not her fault that she made RA chief executive. It was not her fault that the RA board, figuring they wanted a quality field of applicants, chose to pay a salary of over $800,000. It is not even her fault that she qualified for a six-figure bonus last year, which she declined to take — though that could become an interesting topic of discussion as she and RA say their goodbyes in the coming days.

With World Rugby coming to the party with an only-partly-refundable loan, Castle made sure that RA was in a position to claw its way back into the black.

If Australian rugby does manage to find its soul again, maybe she can retrospectively be paid the respect she deserves.