Oh Happy Day

Embattled Rugby Australia boss Raelene Castle has resigned.

On Thursday evening she telephoned interim chairman Paul McLean to hand in her resignation. It brought to an end her almost two-and-a-half year stint as RA's chief executive.

She said in a statement provided to the ABC: "I love rugby on every level and I will always love the code and the people I have had the honour of working with since I took this role. I made it clear to the board that I would stand up and take the flack and do everything possible to serve everyone’s best interests.

"In the last couple of hours, it has been made clear to me that the board believes my no longer being CEO would help give them the clear air they believe they need. The game is bigger than any one individual - so this evening I told the Chair that I would resign from the role.

"I will do whatever is needed to ensure an orderly handover. I wish the code and everyone who loves rugby nothing but the best and I would like to thank the people I work with and the broader rugby community for their enormous support."

Clouds were gathering ominously above Castle's Pyrmont apartment on Thursday as speculation mounted she had less than a week left in the top job.

She was a late scratching from a crucial meeting with the state chairmen to go over RA's 2019 balance sheet and cash position.

Less than 24 hours earlier, Castle's fellow directors excluded her from a board conference call on Wednesday night. She was unaware the meeting had taken place.

Castle's withdrawal from Thursday's balance sheet meeting was unexpected and unexplained to those present on the call, with chief financial officer Simon Rabbitt and new director Peter Wiggs left to steer the talks, which were the first opportunity for the Super Rugby chairs to size up RA's full financial picture.

The developments came as a board source told the Herald Castle would not see out next week at the helm of the business after losing the confidence of the board.

The 48-year-old was not aware of any threat to her job when contacted through a spokesman. Indeed, she was scheduled to appear on the ABC's 7.30 current affairs program on Thursday night, recording an interview with presenter Leigh Sales earlier in the day.

The biggest question the RA board will have to answer is who will replace her.

Australian Rugby should never have appointed the weasel in the first place.  She actually turned the institution into a fight to promote homosexuality and religious oppression, while doing near to nothing for promotion of rugby in the country,   

They should try and get a real top class rugby player with management and financial acumen appointed and get some strong financial backing from as wide a range of private companies to rebuild the whole game in Australia,

The best thing to do would be to sell off the Super Rugby franchises to private corporate individuals and used the money thus saved to expand the game in Australia,            

SA Rugby sent her best wishes in future - it would have been more real to thank he for decline in Rugby in Australia making life easier for the Springboks. 

Well of course Beeno called for her sacking as it was obvious she was an incompetent nz goth freak. Next they need to do an investigation as to who got her the job. Some other nutters need the boot.

They need of course to recall Folau pronto as well. Swallow their pride admit they were wrong. Wonder how many millions the cash strapped union had to pay the wronged Folau.

Yes Mike the Ozzies blundered for sure. Sounds like some weird politically correct appointment. That is why there has to be other nutjobs still involved in running OZ rugby. They had better clean house. Get rid of the pervs!

While I must admit I am pleased to see the last of her (hopefully) now all they have to do is get rid of that "Rear-End Pirate" at Qantas.

Sadly they fired their best player and paid him a ton of money and now he is playing League rugger.

Think it is going to be a while before the Aussies get back to the level they were at prior to these misfits that were are running the rugby.

Perth should be a strong side with all the Saffers living there but the old SR side was weak at best.

I look forward to them getting back to what was Aussie rugby at its best.

Amazing how one or two administrators can cause so much damage to a top national team in such a short time.

One of the players who I believe  they should get rid of is Pocock.   I admire him as a loosie - but apparently he caused problems in the team, especially with the Players from the islands a lot of whom  plays in the Super Rugby team and in the Walabies,

Pocock is apparently supportive of homosexuality and is also a rather loud atheist,   That brings him into conflict with the  players from the Islands who are also not in favour of homosexuality. He apparently had a lot to do with the Folau story - insisting that, its either Folau or him leaving.

There are side-issues that affect team spirit negatively divisive factors that should never be brought into the team environment.   Everyone is obviously entitled to his own believes - but when it is splitting teams and they lose interest in the whole process and on Super Rugby and test level, it is not acceptable,

He will be 33 years old next month and is often injured and as a result miss games rather frequently.     

"Pocock is concerned about global warming and the damage to the environment from human activities. He has publicly expressed his views on these issues and has taken part in the action. Most notably, he visited the Leard Blockade against the expansion of the Maules Creek mine in the Leard State Forest and was arrested for taking part in a nonviolent protest.[15]

In 2012 he publicly supported the Australian Governments Emissions Trading Scheme with a fixed price, saying, "Climate change is one of the biggest challenges of our time and to finally see the government taking action is a bit of a turning point... It's probably not the perfect model, but I think it's a really good start and it's something we need to do for the future of Australians."[16]

Pocock is also one of the most visible campaigners in professional sports in Australia against anti-homosexuality, actively taking a stand both on and off the field.[17]

Alongside this, he has been a public advocate in the campaign for marriage equality in Australia and has been a guest on the ABC's panel show Q&A passionately debating opposition to legalising gay marriage. Although he and partner Emma Palandri held a commitment ceremony in 2010, they refused to sign documents that would result in their legal marriage until their gay friends were able to do the same.[18] After the country enacted legislation to allow same-sex marriage in 2017, they officially married on 1 December 2018."

I highlighted the sentence on and off the field.  Political and other considerations should never be present in teams anyway - it should remain private and not used  the way Pocock carries on.  

I support anything which is not destructive of team spirit within a team sport.  I never once  said I  condoned what Folau did, but expressed the believe that matters should have been handled in  different way,   I quote above what Pocock does regularly,  In some ways it is worse than what Folau did.  Folau never took his issues into the team and onto the field.   However, Pocock did but action against him was minimal.    Radicalism in a team sport is a no-no and that is where it should be kept away from, without effecting the right to free speech of individual players outside of the team environment.           .   

Listen SB

I clearly stated that I did not support what Folau stood for but there were better ways to handle the situation especially with the fact that it caused massive problems within the team environment. Pocock did not associate himself with any charitable causes - he was a reactionary spreading more hate  and even worse than Folau and caused more damage than is imaginable,  It caused serious problems with there best backline players (Kerevi. Naisarani and Leali'ifano) and their best prop (Topau)  threatening to quit   Aussie  Rugby after the Folau fiasco, but was persuaded to stay on.  

If you can tell me that was a wise line of action please support your assertion with facts,  For me a fact is clear - if they fired both Folau and Pocock, there would not have been the crash in rugby that actually happened, since the team spirit would not have taken the knock it actually took,                

"Okay, so now Pocock must go because he is an atheist and doesn't give a shit what gay people do in their own time? "

Pockock is waving his Atheism  around like a drunk taking a wobbly p!s...the same thing Foluo did, but it's more acceptable because the Atheists and the Warmers are right and all the Christians and nonconformists are dead wrong and should be burned alive at the altar of Neo-Paganism.

Don't twist things DB, Folau wasn't fired for being Christian, he was fired for condemning homosexuals (among other people). Pocock may flaunt his atheism (I assume you meant atheism and not athleticism), but he is not directly condemning any segment of the population. 

Ps. Depending on how you look at it, the Christians are the conformists, not the non-conformists. 

By the way, I am not an atheist, I don't quite know exactly where I stand....but what I do believe is based on facts, not emotions and not just what I've been told. 

"Christians and nonconformists"

BTW, I don't want Pocock to be kicked out of the team and I think Mike overstated the rift or whatever he was causing. Propagating believe is the same as propagating unbelief IMO...why unbelievers are getting upset about someone condemning them to something they don't believe in is beyond me anyway. It's equivalent with me getting upset with you because your non-belief in the afterlife is condemning me to oblivion. 

Folau was fired because some people just could not accept his beliefs.

What a virulent debate I started by referring to Pocock also been a problem in the scenario,  The only problem was that I stated what actually happened in the team environment at the time when the Folau was the news in rugby circles and at the time was widely reported in the media,

The discontent of the players who threatened to leave the team were reported in the media as well.

Pocock's threat was also all over the media as well.

Believe me what bothered me is what happened within the team that effected the team spirit as well.  That is perhaps the most problematic issue in the whole saga,  

Pocock is way past his best and suffered injuries as well,   He has not have a decent match for the Wallabies in two years and was not the player he used to be for the same period when eh played for the Brumbies.   At 32 years of age he is over the hill and that is a fact as well,

Anyway if the Aussie Rugby Board was so sure as they stated that it was not a religious issue - why did they pay Folau millions to settle the case?