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It was during dinner with his wife and in-laws at a restaurant in Lyon that Hamish McLennan, the chairman of Rugby Australia, came face-to-face with the menacing personal consequences of the Wallabies’ wretched World Cup campaign.
The incident occurred the night after Australia’s pool-stage exit was all but sealed by a 40-6 loss to Wales just over a week ago.
McLennan, who during his career in media, advertising and marketing has answered to bosses as demanding as Rupert Murdoch, is no stranger to leaning into the eye of storms.
But he says the vitriol directed at him for investing in the Eddie Jones project – that so far has yielded just two wins this year and left the Wallabies poised for a pool-stage exit for the first time in World Cup history – has gone beyond professional criticism.
Sitting at a table in a restaurant in Lyon with his wife Lucinda, her brother and his wife, an Australian fan circled his table for several minutes before pulling up a chair and placing a glass of milk in front of him.
“He ordered me to drink it,” McLennan said. “I took a sip. He told me milk was what all he and his family were all drinking following the Wales defeat.
Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan.Credit: Steven Siewert
“He sat there for 10 minutes. He was particularly aggrieved, which I understand, but I think he crossed the line. It got so messy I thought he was going to swing a punch at me or try to glass me.
“It was ugly, and it was embarrassing for me in front of the family and everyone was shocked. I haven’t told anyone before now apart from friends. I guess it is just a sign of the times.”
A trip to Annecy, an alpine town in south-eastern France, this week offered no respite.
“We escaped to Annecy to get away from it all and when we got there, we met some Wallabies supporters wearing Wallaby Hawaiian shirts and caps,” he said. “They were pretending to take pictures of the scenery but I knew they were instead taking pictures of me. It was pretty funny. I could then overhear them saying: ‘I knew it, I knew it, I knew it was him!’ ”
Wallabies coach Eddie Jones at the game against Portugal on Sunday (Monday AEDT).Credit: Getty
McLennan is not looking for sympathy. The decision to sack Dave Rennie and replace him with Jones in January, who himself had just been sacked by England, was a decision not without risks. He knew that. But he also knew that, in his summation, the worst thing he could have done was nothing.
“I was really concerned that we would get knocked out at the pool stages, which is why we made the change from Dave to Eddie,” McLennan told Telegraph Sport. “So, we wanted to give ourselves the best possible chance of going deeper. That is the great irony of the situation.
“Eddie is a fantastic coach. People may not like the way he conducts himself in the media but he has worked his ass off and he is a smart guy. He has a great win rate and a great World Cup record versus a coach [Rennie] that had never been to a World Cup and had just lost to Italy.”
Whether Jones stays or takes a job with Japan after the World Cup is a moot point. But McLennan remains committed to the coach leading a long-term rebuilding process, reassuring Wallabies fans they will be competitive for the British and Irish Lions tour in 2025 and promising “the greatest ever comeback” by the time Australia hosts the 2027 World Cup.
The Wallabies kept their slim World Cup hopes alive with a bonus-point win over Portugal.Credit: Getty
What drives McLennan is the sense that those attacking him or Jones are missing the point. Since taking over as chairman in the middle of the pandemic in 2020, he has donated his Rugby Australia salary to women’s and Indigenous rugby, and has been prepared to roll up his sleeves in a tough domestic market where both the NRL and AFL are able to make swift decisions to grow interest and revenues.
He is not afraid to roll with the punches, but believes passionately that the performance of the side in France should be kept in context in terms of how rugby in Australia in organised.
Rugby Australia will hold an independent review after the World Cup, which could involve David Nucifora, the former Wallabies hooker who has masterminded Ireland’s rise to No.1 in the world rankings as their high-performance manager. Nucifora delivered a presentation to Rugby Australia in 2012 based on a centralised system of high-performance but it was rejected. McLennan believes now is the time to “seize the moment” to implement a similar structure.
“The pile-on is there, but we have got to think long term,” he said. “We’ve got to think about centralisation, better recruitment of players, better retention of players to stop them going overseas, fix our media rights and continue to get sponsors on board for both men and women and promote the game. And doing all that while there is not a lot of money in the bank.
“I actually think the board’s done a great job despite the results of this World Cup, from where we were. I think society and business are a really funny place where points of view are so amplified, and social media in particular is so highly personal, and offensive. But you’ve got to somehow put that noise out of your mind and make decisions for the good of the game, and long term.
“Rugby in Australia has suffered from short-termism and I have said since day one we have to think long term and 2027 will be our moment.”
Telegraph, London
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