By David Campese
December 6, 2005
THE Australian Rugby Union has finally shown some gumption and shown Eddie Jones the door.
For the best part of three years I was warning that Jones's style of game would lead us into trouble. But how many people wanted to dismiss and demean my comments, make out they were deliberately mischievous and controversial, and designed only to create headlines?
So, where are those wise critics now? After slinging the mud they're now busy choking on it. All I can say is bon appetit.
Eventually the ARU has drifted round to my way of thinking on Jones. Hopefully, it will also be on the same wavelength when it comes to finding a replacement as Australia coach.
Looking at it realistically, only one name comes to mind for me - David Nucifora. He has won a Super 12 title with the ACT Brumbies, he is well respected at the Auckland Blues and he has already expressed his willingness to bring on Australia's next generation.
Nucifora wanted to do precisely that at the Brumbies. That's why the senior players, the ageing stars, made sure the 2004 season was his last.
For those who might have forgotten, Nucifora was told well before the play-offs that he had no job for 2005.
But he refused to walk away or be distracted from the job at hand and, despite the obvious friction with a few of his leading players, he was there at the end when the Brumbies collected the silverware.
Nucifora moved to Auckland this season and has impressed plenty of people there. He will, in next year's Super 14, be the Blues' head coach. That puts him in the same boat as Ewen McKenzie, the NSW Waratahs coach, who will also have provincial duties to take care of before he can hope to move on to the Test role.
My reservation about McKenzie is that he was an assistant under Jones for quite a while at the Wallabies and was indoctrinated to that way of playing. He needs another 12 months, after taking the Waratahs to the Super 12 final last year, to get that Jones syndrome out of his system.
Nucifora would also shake up the Wallabies, and that's exactly what is needed at the moment.
He attempted to scale back "player power" at the Brumbies and that's what led to the revolution that claimed him as the victim.
He would no doubt take that same philosophy into the Test scene. And that would mean several long-serving Brumbies, most notably skipper George Gregan, no longer running the show at national team level as they have done for so many years.
The era of the Brumbies is over. Their style of play no longer works for the Wallabies, and many of their players have clearly seen better days.
We need fresh faces in the team, and a hard man at the top who will ensure that the long-standing Brumbies culture is finally removed from the Wallaby set-up and replaced by a distinctive and non-parochial style and outlook.
It is time for something new. We want to develop a tough pack, get more mongrel, have some forwards who can play tight and run in close like the French and All Blacks do.
We want a solid platform for a backline where Lote Tuqiri, Mat Rogers and Chris Latham are blue-chip talents.
For mine, Rogers and Tuqiri should be on the wings, but feeding off a steady stream of possession, not surviving on rations.
There is much work to be done.
The ARU, now that it has acted in getting rid of Jones, needs to move quickly to get his successor appointed.
The Daily Telegraph
