Leave my husband alone! Rugby Australia boss’s WIFE comes out swinging after Wallabies fans call for him to be sacked after World Cup disgrace
- Lucinda McLennan defended her husband on Instagram
- Wallabies fans called for the RA chairman to move on
- Follows Australia’s shambolic World Cup in France
The wife of embattled Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan has leapt to his defence after fed up Wallabies fans called for his sacking on social media.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Lucinda McLennan was in the mood to confront her husband’s detractors on Instagram, declaring: ‘There is no better person for the impossible job. You try.’
She also later reportedly posted that Eddie Jones, who recently resigned as Australia’s coach just 10 months into a five-year deal following the disastrous World Cup campaign, had a ‘work ethic like no other and nothing but the best intentions’.
‘He came into a dire situation and at the very least improved the winning spirit of the Wallabies,’ she said of Jones, who continues to deny he will take over as Japan’s head coach.
‘The coach doesn’t make the players. Good luck with whatever you decide to do next Eddie.
Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan’s wife Lucinda (pictured with him, right) has leapt to his defence after Wallabies fans called for his sacking
It comes after McLennan hired Eddie Jones in January – he recently walked out from the Wallabies top job, just 10 months into a five-year deal
‘Don’t listen to the haters. It’s so wrong.’
A fired-up McLennan wasn’t finished yet after she was called out by rugby supporters, posting: ‘What’s so funny. Knowledge is power. You have none.’
It comes after her husband made the staggering claim the sport is in a better place now than it was at the time of his appointment.
‘I think we’re better than we were three years ago, even though the World Cup performance was terrible,’ he told reporters in Sydney after flying in from Paris.
‘We inherited a bit of a burning mess. ‘I think there’s a lot of interest in rugby; we’ll get through this.
‘It’s interesting, everyone’s talking about rugby. A lot of the sceptics say the codes dead, it’s not.’
McLennan also believes Jones was the best man for the job after he replaced Dave Rennie in January.
Former Wallabies coach Alan Jones hit Rugby Australia with a withering criticism this week – and wants Hamish McLennan to step aside as chairman
‘Whether Eddie was the right call or not, I think that’s that’s almost irrelevant now because the system’s broken, and we need to fix it,’ he said.
‘Looking forward, I can tell you, there’s no shortage of high-quality coaches that want to come and coach the Wallabies.’
He also declared he has no intention to walk away as RA’s chairman, stating he ‘loves the sport’ and is ‘not a quitter.’
‘Well, I think if you look at what I’ve done, I’ve come in, we secured credit when we have no money in the bank, we secured the World Cups in 2027 and 2029 [women’s] when we had no money in the bank, we paid the women, the Wallaroos, for the first time ever,’ he said.
‘I think I’ve got an intimate knowledge of all that needs to be done.
‘So our performance at the World Cup was a setback….but the truth of the matter is, we’ve got a board and a management team that know what needs to be done.’
Former Wallabies coach Alan Jones believes McLennan’s time is up, posting on social media he has ‘no knowledge of the game’ and was the ‘architect of failure’ at the World Cup, where Australia failed to progress beyond the group stage for the first time.
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