‘Take a breath before burying rugby chiefs’, says John O’Neill

Some of rugby union’s highest-profile supporters have called for calm as calls grow for Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan and coach Eddie Jones to be sacked.

John Howard with Wallabies captain George Gregan during rosier times in Sydney. Picture: Mark Evans

Some of rugby union’s highest-profile supporters have called for calm as calls grow for Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan and coach Eddie Jones to be sacked in light of the Wallabies’ World Cup nightmare.

Former prime minister John Howard, who was part of a recent committee to secure the World Cup on home soil in 2027, has strongly supported Mr McLennan and chief executive Phil Waugh.

“I strongly support, and have a lot of confidence in, Hamish McLennan and Phil Waugh,” Mr Howard said.

“They are doing a very good job in challenging circumstances. Like many people, I welcomed the appointment of Eddie Jones as coach.”

There have been concerns that Mr Waugh was a “captain’s pick”, a claim emphatically shot down by Mr McLennan.

“That’s laughable and not fair on him or his distinguished career on and off the field,” McLennan said. “Phil has made a massive contribution since I’ve been on the board and has intimate knowledge of all that is going on. Phil participated in our CEO process and won hands down. The board unanimously chose Phil on his presentation which focused on the reforms needed to fix our pathways and performance. The fact that he went to the same school as me is purely coincidental.”

The problems that infest and have caused the once strong football code to implode in Australia are many and varied, but there is a resounding belief that rugby needs to do away with a “federated model” and implement an AFL-style commission to govern the game.

“I’ve been saying the exact same thing for three years now [we need an independent commission],” Mr McLennan said.

“We’ve had multiple independent reports done over the years all saying the same thing.

“The member unions [the states] need to agree to push the centralised model through.”

The states are clearly yet to agree.

But the greatest problem according to top Australian sporting administrator and rugby supporter Olympic supremo John Coates is that junior athletes have been lost to other sports.

“The biggest problem is we have lost the schools,” Mr Coates said.

He recently toured Matraville Sports High School in Sydney’s southeast – which produced the legendary Ella brothers Gary, Glen and Mark, and now Wallabies coach Jones – and was told it now ran high-performance programs to funnel junior athletes primarily into elite soccer.

Pundits such as former ­Wallabies coach Alan Jones have called for Mr McLennan and Jones to go, but others like former boss of the Australian Rugby Union and the Football Federation of Australia John O’Neill has called for a review.

Mr O’Neill, the man who was the architect of the modern game in Australia, said that at this time of high emotions the critics should take a deep breath and put down the “AK 47s” aimed at the Rugby Australia board and coach.

“It’s inevitable that the conversation immediately turns to terminating the coach and asking the chairman to resign; that’s predictable,” Mr O’Neill said.

“But we just need to put down the AK 47 for a moment, and ­recognise that the hole that Australian rugby finds itself in has been dug over many years.”