Miller sacked with season's notice
By Wayne Smith and Bret Harris
October 13, 2005
REDS coach Jeff Miller has been shown the door by the Queensland Rugby Union and not even winning a Super 14 title next season will save him.
Miller was recently told by QRU board member and former Queensland and Australian team-mate Dan Crowley that the organisation had decided not to extend his contract when it expires at the end of the 2006 season.
It is understood Miller wanted to resign immediately and be paid out on the remainder of his contract but this was refused, leaving him as a lame duck coach going into the inaugural season of Super 14. QRU chief executive Theo Psaros, whose own position is to be reviewed, yesterday refused to comment on Miller's fate.
"It would be totally inappropriate to comment on Jeff's situation while he is away on tour in Argentina with the Reds," Psaros said.
Ironically, the four-match South American tour was intended as a morale-boosting exercise after the disappointment of a Super 12 season in which the Reds finished 10th. Instead, Miller has had to put on a brave face in front of his players who remain unaware of the situation.
Although he declined to be interviewed, Miller released a statement in which he said he was "100 per cent committed to the Reds and bringing success to Queensland rugby".
"My total focus is on today's game with Mendoza, the rest of the tour to Argentina and then the Super 14. I am looking forward to next year and to working with an exceptional group of players," Miller said.
He would be the first to acknowledge that the Reds have not flourished under him, although there were reasons outside his control. In his first season, 2004, Queensland won only five Super 12 games but was blighted by the loss of five five-eighths during the course of the campaign. This year's campaign collapsed when the Reds became the first team targeted by the Western Force and when Queensland captain Nathan Sharpe announced he was joining the Perth expansion club, the floodgates opened. Yet while there may have been legitimate grounds for sacking Miller as soon as the Super 12 season ended in May, it makes little sense for the QRU to have kept him on only to undermine his motivation and his standing with the team. The only explanations are that the pay-out figure would be too exorbitant, remembering that Miller effectively negotiated his own contract when he made the extraordinary jump from QRU chief executive to coach when Andrew Slack unexpectedly quit in 2003, or that the Reds need the time to find a replacement coach or that they already have secured a coach who does not become available until after next season.
Scott Johnson, the Australian-born Wales assistant coach who Miller himself once tried to recruit, would head the list of potential replacements. Even parochial Welsh critics acknowledge the significant role he played in Wales' Six Nations championship victory this year and there is little doubt he is ready to step up to a senior head coaching position.
Also in contention would be three former Queensland players who have turned their hand successfully to coaching: Michael Foley, Pat Howard and Tony D'Arcy.
"Certainly to my knowledge - and bear in mind I haven't been chairman all that long - we haven't approached anybody to take the senior position," new QRU chairman Robin Thompson said yesterday.
Asked whether Miller could save his position if he engineered a dramatic Reds turnaround next season, Thompson replied: "We will have to make a decision when Jeffery returns and we will make that decision with Jeffery.
"The thing is that he's in Argentina, we're out here and to be commenting on any of these matters to any extent beyond what I have said while he is absent and unable to attend any direct press conference would be unfair to both parties."
Miller's situation replicates the one David Nucifora found himself in when the ACT Brumbies announced midway through the 2004 season that his services would not be required after the Super 12 series. Under Nucifora, the Brumbies won the title that year.
Nucifora, now gearing up for his first season as coach of the Auckland Blues, said he was dumbfounded that his old University, Queensland and Australian team-mate had been engulfed by the same bizarre circumstances. Asked whether Miller's position had become untenable, Nucifora said: "Jeffery's got to work that out but I feel for him. One thing about coaching is that you've got to be looking forward and making decisions for the future. This becomes very limiting."
The Australian
