ED ITOR’S

// NZ RUGBY WORLD // JUNE/JULY 2015

ROAD TO

OBLIVION

SOMETIMES IT JUST HAPPENS – A COACH MAY SEEM LIKE A GOOD APPOINTMENT

OR BE DOING WELL WHEN, FOR ONE REASON OR ANOTHER, IT ALL GOES HORRIBLY

WRONG. WE LOOK AT THE TOP 10 COACHING MELTDOWNS.

EWEN MCKENZIE

Ewen McKenzie took over the Wallaby

coaching job in August 2013 after proving

himself an astute and talented strategic

operator with the Reds.

He was neither odd nor bizarre in the way he

communicated with his players and the media – and

was in fact refreshingly direct, open and insightful.

That was the way until his world unravelled during

the 2014 Rugby Championship. In the space of three

weeks, it all fell apart.

Kurtley Beale was the catalyst – being involved as

he was in an unsavoury bust up with the Wallabies

business manager Di Patston on a ﬂight from South

Africa to Chile.

The altercation resulted in Patston making a formal

complaint to the ARU – not about the incident on the

plane, but as it transpired, about two unacceptably

nasty texts Beale had sent to her a few months earlier.

Before anyone knew it, there was a fully-blown

never ending saga. Who had known what about the

texts? Who had tried to cover them up? How was the

issue going to be resolved and was, as the Australian

media asked, McKenzie having a personal relationship

with Patston?

This played out in the week the Wallabies played the

All Blacks in Brisbane. Amazingly, under media siege all

week, the Wallabies came within a whisker of winning.

McKenzie calmly answered questions about the test

and then revealed he had quit earlier in the day.

“I’ll just let you know that I resigned this morning at

10 o’clock. Win, lose or draw I was going to announce

my resignation tonight. I’ve only just told the team.

“It’s been a disappointing time for many reasons.

I’m not going to go into the reasons. You guys can

work it out.”

CLOSE THEN CLOSED

The Wallabies played their best test in

years the day McKenzie resigned.