Sometimes Weird is Fun, Sometimes Weird is Just Weird: Campaign Notes, Part 2 (Detour from the Trail)
We will get to the campaign. Never mind all that. We will be back next week. And it will be worth the ride down the bumpy tangent. On that, you will have to trust me.
The Angels of Above occasionally smile down upon you with extra delight. The score has somehow worked out in your favour and good times are ready to roll on through. The sun shines, the birds chirp, the horses win and the news causes giddiness. This week, those Angels of Above shone upon me with illuminating eyes and radiating cheeks. It was magical and can only get better from here. Weird can be fun. Real fun.
This week Alan Jones has been publicly pushed for the Wallabies coaching gig. The Alan Jones who coached the Wallabies in the halcyon days of amateurism, the same Alan Jones who miserably failed with Balmain and a pre-Romper Stomper South Sydney and the same Alan Jones who spends his days on air pulling various strings and blowing various whistles.
There were always going to be dog days ahead for Australian rugby after the World Cup failure. The last beacon of hope, the moral justification for the abhorrent on-field performance for the past four years, had flickered out. Most would desert slowly and the rest would stand on principle as the ship sank. Nobody saw cannibalism. Two horsemen have appeared on the scene and the introduction of famine and death now seems imminent.
“And flashing late down the centre of the track, coming with a withering burst, Famine…”
It all started out, one would imagine, as someone getting their kicks. It was a laugh. Alan Jones was listed at big odds to get the Wallaby coaching gig in bookmakers betting on same and nobody took it seriously. What kind of crazed brute would? A week back, it would have been absurd and you would have been locked up for thinking such ridiculousness. Beasts in blue shirts and waving steel-capped night sticks, jacked to the eyeballs on some heart-pumping and hardening drug, will come looking for you, demanding you “get off your goddamn trip” and waiting for the wrong answer so a stomping can ensue.
What was last week’s fantasy, though, is this week’s reality. Alan Jones is no longer a sick joke from a hopped up bookmaker keen for a laugh or two. Alan Jones is a contender for position of next Wallaby coach. Sportingbet have him rated at 5-1, fifth favourite, and you won’t find too much of that with the street corner bookies and gambling insiders who have him significantly shorter. There is a lot of talk of greater forces and political power and too weird not to be true going on in these circles, fuelling a fire that already rages bright and tall, a blazing monument to the final days of rugby. Conspiracy theories abound that the story wouldn’t have made it this far if it Jones wasn’t an inevitability for the job. Jones only involves himself in battles he will win.
The news wire really cranked into overdrive when Queensland rugby boss Peter Lewis not only tossed the name Alan Jones into the realm of legitimate contender but put the full weight of Queensland rugby behind the move. Never mind the fact Lewis is a little on the wild side with another fanciful notion of his, merging rugby league and rugby union into one “super” code (Hey Pete, we already have one super code, it is called rugby league), is sure to hit the annals as one of the most desperate ploys in the long and sordid history of rugby union.
Alan Jones, in all his self-imagined splendour, seized the opportunity like a cobra, sinking his teeth in to the fleshy thigh of Australian rugby. Using the John Howard tactic from those days immediately following the Things that Batter remark, Alan Jones has taken the high road, claiming the role of saviour. “If Peter Lewis and the Queensland Rugby Union…are of the view I am the person who can make that contribution then I am obligated to put my hand up and say, ‘Well, if that is the case, I’m available.’” It is a truly magnanimous gesture that most certainly was not orchestrated by Alan Jones and his boys.
Jones has not coached rugby since 1987, the year of the very first Rugby World Cup and a time when the game was, in theory at any rate, amateur (though strong arguments persist that though there is money in rugby these days, the sport is still a long way from professional). His plan is to bring back his coaching staff from the 1984 Grand Slam winning team, oblivious to the changes the game has undertaken in the subsequent quarter-century. The team will kick more, if that is possible. And the role of coach will only be part-time, a real salute to the age of rugby professionalism.
The result of this public politicking that has thrust Jones into the role of contender has been to polarize opinion, two sides now facing off with each other like thirteen-year-olds at the year seven discothèque. Those against Jones include Bob Dwyer, Eddie Jones and Ewen McKenzie, all embarrassed by the fact someone out of the game for twenty years is considered capable enough to undertake their profession at a more competent level than themselves. Spruikers of the Jones candidature include many of the eighties Wallabies, those caught in the Jones web of influence and rugby league fans everywhere. There could be no better outcome for league freaks across the country. One more nail in the coffin.
Surprisingly to many, this is not a joke. This is not a ruse from your homespun author keen for his kicks. This is the way this week has gone down. And it is only going to get better. Alan Jones is about to be appointed Wallaby coach. Rugby will be thrown back to 1984. Supporters will crow until it all goes horribly wrong, detractors will hack at the game until it is no more.
Sometimes this gig is just way too easy.