Wallaby
coach one day, Queensland the next –
life’s not so bad for Eddie Jones. And just about everyone is very happy with
the appointment as the traits that limited Jones as the national coach could be
beneficial for the Reds.

Why?
Because Jones’s obsessive streak, his need to control everything, becomes a
virtue when the Queensland Rugby Union itself is out of control.

The
Reds finished a miserable tenth in the Super 12 last season but much
worse than that, they were beaten for the first time in a Super 12 or Super 10
match by the NSW latte sippers. If that only happens once every 13 years or so,
it is still too often.

There
are some partial excuses for the tenth place – a couple of unlucky
results, a dreadful injury toll – and the Waratahs were Super 12 finalists last
year, thanks to all the Queenslanders in the side. But there are no excuses for
the way Queensland has been
leaderless since dumping Knuckles Connolly.

Connolly
left a vacuum that has exposed the QRU organisation as being off the pace for a
professional sport franchise.

Andrew
Slack didn’t last a season as coach and Jeff Miller has proven an unfortunate
choice as well as unlucky – not helped by the sort of organisation that was so
pathetic as to lose the side’s best forward and captain, Nathan Sharpe, to the
Western Force.

Sharpe
won the players’ Medal of Excellence this year and will leave another big hole
to fill. No-one brought up in the Reds culture as Sharpe has been would leave
easily.

And
now the QRU has the nonsense of going through 2006 with Jeff Miller as a lame
duck coach and Eddie Jones already employed.

In
simple Management 101 terms, that would get an F in any business school. Given
Jones’s problems dealing with assistant coaches, Ballymore should be comedy
central for the players caught between Miller seeing out his contract and Jones
looking to 2007.