Reds do what they should have done in August

Yesterday, just 10 days into the 2016 Super Rugby season, the Reds reached the decision they avoided last August and sacked Richard Graham as coach.

Yesterday, just 10 days into the 2016 Super Rugby season, the Queensland Reds reached the decision that they avoided last August and sacked Richard Graham as coach.

Whether they now have avoided another tough decision by naming Graham’s former assistants, Matt O’Connor and Nick Stiles, as co-coaches until the end of the season is a question that will play out in the weeks and months ahead. Yet even the man who announced the joint appointments, Reds rugby manager Dan Herbert, admitted he would be “interested to see how it pans out”.

After struggling for more than two seasons with Mr Twenty-Six Per Cent — Graham’s winning record in Super Rugby at one stage — the Reds now have the circuit-breaker that they were crying out for.

It was Saturday’s home match against the Western Force that was the clincher for Reds chairman Damien Frawley and the board. While there were some redeeming qualities to the Reds’ season-opener against the Waratahs on February 27, there was none at all against the team from Perth. “After the first game I thought there was a bit of heart but that they were outplayed by a better team, but there was no excuse for last weekend,” said Herbert.

“It was as bad a performance I have seen from Queensland in a long time. While I saw some really positive work in the pre-season, that came undone on the weekend when I didn’t see people playing for each other. There needed to be a circuit-breaker and hopefully this provides that circuit-breaker.”

Graham’s original appointment as Ewen McKenzie’s successor had been openly questioned, because he had had a disappointing record at his previous team, the Western Force. Yet when McKenzie progressed to the Wallabies coaching position in late 2013, the Queensland Rugby Union immediately activated the succession plan.

Yesterday, for the first time, came an acknowledgment that the QRU got it wrong.

“Judging by the wins and losses, you’d certainly say that,” said Herbert. “We went ahead with the succession plan — and that hasn’t gone to plan.”

By last August, the Reds finally bowed to public pressure and conducted a coaching review. It should have led to a coaching change immediately but the then QRU chairman Rod McCall dug in, backed his own opinion in defiance of both expert and public opinion and reappointed Graham.

Reds memberships nosedived and it’s expected the QRU will announce a $1 million loss at its annual general meeting in a fortnight. McCall, who stepped down before the start of the season, has watched on while his entire plan barely survived initial contact with the enemy — Graham lasting just two matches and 10 days into the new season.

Graham admitted he would have liked more than two games to prove he had turned the Reds around. “You’d always like more games,” Graham said. “I controlled what I could control but the organisation had to make decisions as well. I don’t think the timing is ever right but that’s the nature of this business.”

He has, at times, had to deal with a horrendous injury toll, 14 players at its peak, and even this year might have worked out differently had not Wallabies James Slipper, Kane Douglas and Liam Gill been ruled out with injury for at least half the season.

But Graham equally has been head of the rugby program while such Queensland mainstays as James Horwill, Quade Cooper, Will Genia, James Hanson, Ben Tapuai, Mike Harris and Don Shipperley have walked out on Ballymore, many of them expressing disappointment with his coaching. Gill will join them at season’s end.

Just how big a job O’Connor and Stiles will have was driven home by the Fox Sports ratings for the match against the Force. The peak reach for the game was 285,000 viewers — yet the average for the game was just 84,000.

Presumably — given that the Reds placed the two coaches off-limits to the media until later in the week — O’Connor and Stiles pretty much will split up their duties along existing lines, with Stiles continuing to coach the forwards, while O’Connor takes the backs, while also inheriting Graham’s role as defence coach.

Their first test will come against the Rebels on Saturday. It’s the second year in a row that Rebels coach Tony McGahan’s side has played Queensland after a coaching shake-up. Last time, the Reds beat the Rebels 46-29 after John Connolly had been brought in to help Graham.

TAHS’ RELIEF P35