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'What a shame': McLennan's bitter parting shot after being ousted by Rugby Australia board
By Ben Smith
A series of late-night special board meetings resulted in embattled Rugby Australia Chairman Hamish McLennan being ousted from his role after a fight with the six state unions.
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The state bodies had all voted for McLennan to step down, but McLennan stood firm and initially refused to back down.
Rugby Australia called an emergency board meeting which resulted in former Wallaby Dan Herbert being installed as the new Chair.
The Australian businessmen opted to quit entirely and will not remain as a director.
The 57-year-old had a bitter message to Rugby Australia speaking with The Australian, saying that rugby league “had won” after a “grubby” smear campaign.
“Best of luck everyone,” he told The Australian.
“What a shame. The grubby smear campaign won this battle and the big winner is the NRL.”
The state unions had sent a letter which highlighted their lack of faith in McLennan following a turbulent 2023 which saw the Wallabies finish with their worst ever World Cup campaign.
“We do not believe Mr McLennan has been acting in the best interests of our game,” the letter said.
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“We no longer have any trust or faith in his leadership, or the direction in which he is taking rugby in Australia.
“Additionally, we believe Mr McLennan has been acting outside his role as a director, exerting an undue influence on the operations and executives of Rugby Australia.
McLennan’s time in charge of Rugby Australia was hallmarked by his decision to sack Dave Rennie in favour of Eddie Jones in late 2022 and a public war-of-words with rugby league.
For a brief period rugby union made national headlines as the two codes became embattled over Rugby Australia’s monster signing of Roosters young gun Joseph Suaali’i.
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The coup sparked a panic in the NRL with Rugby Australia seen as a genuine threat to make more raids as Jones and McLennan ramped up their media presence.
However, things turned south for Jones and the Wallabies as the 2023 season began with five straight losses heading into the Rugby World Cup.
Experienced veterans Quade Cooper and Michael Hooper were left at home as Jones picked the youngest squad at the Rugby World Cup.
After a shock loss to Fiji in the pool stages, Australia failed to progress past the pool stage for the first time in their history.
Rumours swirled that Jones had spoken with the JRFU about returning to Japan to coach the Brave Blossoms despite having a contract in place with Rugby Australia until the end of 2027.
In late October Jones confirmed he had quit his post as head coach of the Wallabies, ending one of the worst runs in history.
McLennan’s high-risk gamble to bring back Jones ultimately backfired whilst the organisation reportedly has “cold feet” over the deal for Suaali’i with uncertainty over how it will be funded.
The NRL has also gone on the offensive with a plan to target Australian union stars with a “salary cap exemption”, with star winger Mark Nawaqanitawase having reportedly met with the Roosters about a potential switch to rugby league.
Shows where his interests really were. My way or the highway, he chose the highway rather than stay on & contribute. After all, he only lost the chairmanship.
Accountability is tough McLennan
I bet he sold out Eddie to try and save is own ass as well. He is appearing more and more like that sort of human. Could Eddie have actually been trying to outlast him. Would there have been some sort of hope of forming a team with Herbert in charge.
Makes me wonder now, I had been so adamant Eddie deserved much of the blame. I hadn’t really thought that league was that concerned, but Eddie’s friendly battle with league did seem to turn nasty when Hamish got involved.
It would be a huge shame if Eddie did hold back on accepting the blame for the state of the side because he was having some behind the scenes battle with Hamish to stay on. It would explain that and why he kept saying he was committed to staying on. If he had of committed selecting from the whole of Australia, based on Super Rugby form, and not overseas or club stuff, I think he would probably have been the best person to take these aussies on this 4 year journey.
That is probably whishful thinking though.
Good day for NZ rugby…we need Aus to be strong. This guy was a narcissistic fool
Best news possible…completly gone ! Now the hunt can really begin for a new coach. Might need to be a few more board members gone though…but tbh I don’t know enough on this one.
This is great news. I’m glad he didn’t budge so he had to go through the indignity of being ousted. He probably never liked Rennie anyway cause it sounds like he’s actually a decent human. Go Aussies, get some good leadership in place and get cracking again. We want you firing for 2027.
Panic in the NRL? That they might split their sides laughing at the chair of an impoverished rival starring a bidding war he couldn't possibly win and gloating about it?
And who's Hamish trying to kid? NRL won as soon as he started the war.
Hears a new debate for world rugby rant people;
A four-year qualifying series is needed with three divisions of six teams in the women’s rugby nations and four divisions of six teams in the men’s rugby nations, as the rugby needed to qualify for the RWC in every fifth year, which would be more meaningful than the RWC itself.
Presently the RWCs format is about who you play as a nonsensical comp. And all of the minnow rugby playing nations don’t get the rugby they need to get in division one. Making the RWC not worth watching, as it isn’t a real competition, so why watch IT?
The RWC format will have to be changed because of the economic times to be held every 5th year regardless, to be economic, manageable and safe for the RWC organizers and the hosts. Giving the smaller nations plenty of game-time to qualify under regulated competitiveness to challenge for a better WR rank or a better division.
To qualify for the RWC year, your team should have to be within the top seven teams with the hosts as eight teams who could be any of the 10 odd developed nations. With two wild cards from the other divisions included to play in the RWC to full the two pools with five teams as a ten team RWC. Enabling there to be two or three neighboring hosts, then those hosting nations as partners could easily host all 47 games.
IE - If USA got in the top 8 teams before their own RWC as hosts they’d probably choose their two neighbors’ as wild cards consisting of Canada and Uruguay as potential hosting partners.
Which would create a very prestigious competition to play in, and would be a huge ‘money spinning’ tournament, with extra money made from the qualifying series for every rugby playing nation.
Probably several of rugbies minnow rugby playing nations won’t even exist before USAs two RWCs anyway. So, many teams as smaller rugby nations might not survive to be included in every second RWC once every tenth year as “wild” cards without having a 4 yearly qualifying RWC series anyway?
Hopefully WR change the way they format their games before USA’s two RWCs and have the RWC held every fifth year. And have the RWC qualifiers held as a series of games held over a 4-year period, where every team plays ‘home and away’ games with an automatic relegation/promotion between the divisions.
So, the RWC will be amongst nearly all the top ten WR teams split in two pools of five teams with the top four teams from each pool playing in the quarter-finals. To progress to the semi-finals and maybe play for the WEB ELLIS TROPHY. Formatting the RWC with 47 games?
Which is equal game wise to the present RWC but it would be a real competition!
Having different divisions as the RWC qualifiers would economically benefit the smaller nations, even if that nation has limited resources etc, while providing a lot of closer games. Minnow playing rugby nations could dual up with other more economic host nations like Australia-Fiji, NZ-Samoa/Tonga, Italy/Georgia/Portugal could team up with any of Europe’s six nations teams economically to get included in the RWC.
Namibia and Kenya could team up South Africa or USA could team up with Canada, Argentina could team up Uruguay/Chile. Economically there’d could be a lot of solutions that are economic and SAFE that suit all nations.
Having relegation/promotion every year would rank a team’s form correctly while regulating competitive-ness perfectly.
The WR ranking systematic system reads a nation’s squads form correctly as the top squads have to win/win/win to keep their favorable ranks anyway. Just as the lower ranked squads can’t beat them because there’s no ‘time’ to grow their rugbies competitiveness because there’s “no” relegation in the form of divisions.
Having automatic relegation between divisions would give the promoted teams in women’s and men’s divisions time to grow depth and challenge for a better rank in that division as their teams status, to avoid getting relegated back into the lower division. Which would enable the different WR ranked divisional teams time to develop professionally as a team to avoid relegation.
That would block division one ranked teams from thrashing other divisional teams. Obviously different divisional squads would suffer being relegated during this challenge relegation/promotion rank systems time frame, as those nations would have to compete to get back in their desired division for the RWC qualification.
Hypothetically that would protect the integrity in world rugby by relying on regulated competitiveness to format both the men’s and women’s RWC divisions. With automatic relegation/promotion games and challenging rank games to make or to stay in your desired division!
Which would provide for many close games with more teams of about the same ability like the creation of a real meritocracy competition.