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Rugby Australia will make recommendations from the external review of the Wallabies’ disastrous World Cup performance available to the public, potentially by the end of this year.
The recommendations will come from a three-person review panel that will review the Wallabies’ 2023 season and includes former Wallabies Andrew Slack and Justin Harrison, who is also CEO of the Rugby Union Players Association, as well as sports industry executive Darlene Harrison.
The panel is currently reviewing the strategy and structure of the Wallabies’ performance environment in 2023 which includes getting extensive feedback from players and staff who took part in the World Cup in France.
The full terms of reference for the review are not currently known but are expected to include World Cup selection decisions – including leaving out former captain Michael Hooper – coaching and the overall environment for players and staff.
Former Wallabies captain Phil Kearns stated that the review should have a wider remit beyond the 2023 season.
“I think firstly, I congratulate them if it’s going be released soon, with the speed that review has been done,” Kearns said.
Hamish McLennan and Phil Kearns with the Wallabies in 2020.Credit: Stuart Walmsley/Rugby Australia
“There’s not a huge amount of rocket science involved on went wrong. It’s pretty obvious. I think the deeper review needs to go into coaching at the grassroots level and all through different levels of our game and coaching methodology.”
Asked whether the RA board should be held responsible for the World Cup debacle, where the Wallabies missed the knockout stages for the first time, Kearns believes that the focus should be on the players and staff who were at the tournament.
“I think probably the people that have the least responsibility for that performance is the board,” Kearns said. “The people that have the most responsibility are the coaching staff, selectors and the players.
“You know, in 1995, we had a shocker in the World Cup. We lost the quarter-final and had the embarrassment of coming through the airport and seeing our supporters on the way over to South Africa to see us.
“It wasn’t until personally, I got home and looked in the house of mirrors at a whole bunch of things from attitude through to skill and fitness all those things [came to mind]. And the person that was most to blame was the players.”
Former Wallabies coach John Connolly said that he believes the review’s findings will be obvious.
“What it will show is that all the troubles in the background are obvious,” Connolly said.
“We know the coaching was a mess. The assistants, one walked out the night before (the World Cup), we know that there were 23 people who were paid for the World Cup as our support staff, which is just ridiculous.
“We know that we played incredibly poor rugby; that was like turning back time.”
Former Wallabies coach John Connolly at the 2007 World Cup in FranceCredit: Fairfax
Connolly believes that the players’ feedback from the World Cup will not offer any surprises to the panel.
“They will probably tell us things that we already can see, we’re not blind” Connolly said.
“We saw the mess (in France), the review will tell us, we know the mess, we can see it.”
Speaking to the Australian Financial Review, Rugby Australia chief executive Phil Waugh also confirmed the review would be used to assess whether too much money was spent on the World Cup campaign.
Eddie Jones walked out less than 12 months into a five-year deal as Wallabies coach after the World Cup disaster.Credit: Getty
“That’ll be part of the review process,” Waugh said. “Given where we are in the cycle, we’ve got to be really sensible as to how we spend money.”
The ousting of former chairman Hamish McLennan could delay the review, given the panel will need to present their findings to the Rugby Australia board and new chairman Daniel Herbert before their recommendations are made available to the public.
Former coach Eddie Jones is due to finish at Rugby Australia on Saturday and has still been coming into the Moore Park headquarters regularly in between his coaching commitments with the Barbarians.
Jones has already completed his personal World Cup review and was asked by Waugh to contribute to the panel’s broader probe before his departure.
The 2023 World Cup review’s recommendations will be made available to the public after the Wallabies’ previous reviews of the 2019 World Cup and 2022 season were both kept confidential.
This review will sit separately from Rugby Australia’s strategic review on the future of the game.
Speaking to the Herald days before McLennan’s departure, Waugh confirmed that this strategic plan will be made public.
“We’re going to be publishing a strategic plan through to 2032,” Waugh said.
“We’ll hopefully iron it out by the end of this month and then deliver it to the public at the start of next year before the Super Rugby season.”
This strategic plan will include Rugby Australia’s goal to increase community participation, the blueprint for club rugby and also the introduction of a new non-contact form of the game.
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