Time to choose between Dave Rennie and Scott Johnson

RA’s director of rugby Scott Johnson, right, talks with Reds coach Brad Thorn in Brisbane last month. Picture: Getty Images

Michael Cheika was recently quoted in the London Times newspaper as saying, “In a footy team there can only be one boss”.

Clearly, when Rugby Australia made Cheika answer to Scott Johnson in the lead up to the 2019 Rugby World Cup, his authority in the Wallaby group was undermined.

Michael Cheika went on to say, “I should have left because that showed they didn’t trust me anymore”.

Cheika is 100 per cent correct on both counts. He should have left when the RA board brought in Johnson. Players can only answer to one boss.

Rob Clarke is the interim chief executive. We don’t need an interim CEO who binds his successor to decisions made in the absence of the incoming chairman. And Clarke has been identified with the failures of the past.

Further, I have warned that if you put your hand out for money from World Rugby, they will, understandably, exact a high price.

World Rugby are saying, if you want the money you had better meet certain conditions.

And so the sackings – 47 full-time and 30 part-time staff.

But Clarke has said he would “protect the high-performance program … that’s going to help get the Wallabies where they need to get to in the world rankings”.

Absolute and utter rubbish.

The first reality is that World Rugby are calling the shots within Australian rugby.

We are being asked to jump. They will tell us how high. That we should have sunk to this!

Clarke clearly does not share the same view as Cheika because he has fudged the biggest staffing decision of all.

The Wallabies need one boss, not two. With the unknown Dave Rennie coming in July, why do we need Johnson? They can’t both be the boss.

Australian rugby is in a crisis. A study by the Gemba Group has revealed 43 per cent of rugby viewers have given up on the code in Australia since 2013.

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The challenges confronting rugby are monumental. The very future of the game is at stake.

Does anyone apart from the outgoing Board trust Johnson or Rennie to do for rugby what Justin Langer has done for cricket? Check the scoreboard. In Johnson’s most recent stint as an international coach in Scotland, he managed to win five out of 16 Test matches. That’s a win rate of about 30 per cent.

Rennie has never coached at Test level. But in his most recent season in Glasgow, his team was seventh in the Pro14 and ninth in the European Cup.

Overall his team won 10 out of 19 matches this season, that is only just above 50 per cent.

The Glasgow coach before Rennie was Gregor Townsend. He won a Pro14 Premiership in 2015 with the same group of players. Rennie inherited a wonderful Glasgow team and has virtually done nothing with them.

When I say I don’t trust either Johnson or Rennie to do a better job than Cheika, it is based on fact.

It might seem harsh to make these statements, but I have walked in the shoes of a Wallaby coach. I know what is required.

The record books bear witness to our success.

So what should the new board of Rugby Australia do about the so-called “high performance program”? They should put the broom through that department with the same vigour that they have applied to the rest of the organisation.

The Wallabies play around 13 Test matches a year, yet they spend about $5 million on so-called high performance coaching staff.

The following full time people are all mates of Johnson: Team manager Chris Webb; head coach Rennie; defence coach Matt Taylor; attack coach Scott Wisemantel; forward’s coach to be announced; head trainer Dean Benton. On top of that is Johnson. You are kidding me.

These people do little but get in one another’s way and confuse an already confused Australian team.

Yet Rennie will be paid $1 million a season and Johnson is on big money to ride shotgun and have little accountability. The waste is breathtaking. The lack of accountability is mesmerising.

When my teams played we had a team manager and I was the head coach.

I was the first person anywhere in the world to appoint an assistant coach, simply because I wanted both squads of 15 in a touring party of 30 to be supervised on the paddock at all times and I did not want the players having their time wasted. Other nations followed suit.

By keeping things simple we found clarity of purpose. The buck stopped with me. I think we did OK.

Last week, I reminded Hamish McLennan, the incoming chairman, that his first job should be to commit to a road map for constitutional change.

The rugby public must have a say in who runs our game. This week my message is simple.

Find a man like cricket’s Langer to drive the change required to bring respect to the Wallabies and our game.

When Langer set out to win the public back to Australian cricket, he didn’t focus on being the best cricket team in the world.

Instead, he focused on having the best values and processes. He said he was going to put character before cover drives.

McLennan must choose between Johnson and Rennie.

If it weren’t for the fact that massive payouts are involved, he could show both the exit door based on the simple fact that they have been given prestigious jobs in Australian rugby without the appropriate credentials to back their appointment.

What a mess we are in, signing these people up to long-term contracts.

But I guess if we can remove this bloated bureaucracy from the preparation of one team for a handful of Test matches a year, then perhaps there might be some money to be put into grassroots and club rugby.

Just imagine the administration giving money to the clubs and grassroots again. I suppose that’s as likely as expecting the sun to come up in the west.