Mark Reason is a sports columnist for Stuff. This article is reproduced with permission
OPINION: A weekend of absolute sporting chaos culminated in Hamish McLennan, the chair of Rugby Australia, being voted out of office at an emergency board meeting.
Shortly after the announcement, an autopsy revealed that the likely cause of McLennan's demise was a brass neck which prevented blood from circulating to the brain.
Rumours of an impromptu champagne party being thrown at the headquarters of New Zealand Rugby have yet to be substantiated, although the bellicose Aussie businessman was known to be about as popular with the leaders of NZR as a rabid possum.
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"The similarities are remarkable," said a source.
"One is a pest that represents one of the greatest threats to our natural environment. The other is a nocturnal marsupial with a protuberant snout and large pointy ears."
NZR's leadership are joyful because they are desperate to revitalise Super Rugby in 2026 when the current TV contract will have expired.
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They need fewer Aussie teams and two or three new teams from the Americas, Japan and even potentially South Africa.
McLennan, despite the financial improvements that he had brought to Australian rugby, would have been a hindrance to such development.
Phil Waugh, the CEO of Rugby Australia, is seen as more progressive.
Now everyone can move on.
On the face of it McLennan's fate was settled when six of RA's member unions wrote a letter calling for his immediate resignation.
The unions of Queensland, ACT Rugby, NT Rugby, Rugby WA, Tasmania Rugby and South Australia Rugby alleged that the chairman had been acting outside his remit and not in the best interests of the game.
McLennan said it was all "a classic case of the tail wagging the dog", "rubbish" and "a cheap shot."
He said he was the victim of a smear campaign and proclaimed: "This will be the defining moment for the battle of rugby. It's all about money and control… this is about principles. They are actually not putting the game first and it's about self interest and parochialism."
At that moment Andrew Abdo, the boss of Australia's NRL, was reported to have choked on his schooner of milk and honey.
Abdo asked himself whether this bloke who was banging on about money, control, self interest, principles and parochialism could be the same bloke who had swiped league star Joseph Suaalii from the Roosters earlier in the year.
When the NRL had objected to such flagrant poaching – a reported $5 million deal which was described by some as "insane" and part of an "identity crisis" – McLennan called the critics "a bunch of cry-babies".
The Aussie chair then doubled down and suggested that RA might go after league pin up boy Nathan Cleary next.
McLennan said that the idea of the NRL star "running out in front of 85,000 people wearing Wallaby gold at Stade de France" was "mind blowing."
It certainly blew the mind of Andy Marinos, the then CEO of Rugby Australia. Marinos resigned.
He regarded the amount of money spent on Suaalii as absurd and predicted that it would start a turf war with the NRL that Rugby Australia would lose.
That kicked off in recent weeks with the Roosters approaching Wallabies wing Mark Nawaqanitawase in what was clearly an act of revenge.
The NRL also identified Waratahs teenager Max Jorgensen as a target.
Abdo has confirmed that salary cap relief could potentially be granted to facilitate such moves.
There is no way that RA could win a fiscal shootout against the NRL.
Many of Australia's unions were now becoming increasingly disgruntled.
They had considered a smear campaign, but decided it was unnecessary as McLennan was doing such a capable job all by himself.
The chair's other moment of utter idiocy had been to sack Dave Rennie as coach of Australia and replace him with Eddie Jones, a coach who had just been fired by England because he was viewed as past it and divisive.
Rennie's Australia had been going through an unprecedented injury crisis in 2022, but despite that they had still beaten South Africa, Wales and Scotland, lost to France by a single point and lost to Ireland by three points.
They would also have turned over the All Blacks in Melbourne but for Bernard Foley's crazy delay in taking a penalty.
Rennie's Australia were clearly building something good.
McLennan and Jones between them smashed that edifice to smithereens.
It was noticeable how bad both Samu Kerevi and Marika Koroibete were at the World Cup whereas under Rennie the pair had been world beaters.
It took Jones a matter of weeks to lose the players as he bombarded them with information and riffled through one captain after another.
And this bloke was the saviour according to McLennan when he made his "captain's call."
When Australia predictably imploded and became the laughing stock of the World Cup, we all thought that McLennan would do the decent thing and resign.
When Jones was alleged to have held clandestine talks with Japan during the tournament, we all thought McLennan would do the decent thing and resign.
When Jones did the decent thing and resigned, we all thought McLennan would follow him out the door.
That was certainly the word on the ground in France.
And when six of the unions then collectively came after McLennan, surely the chairman would now finally act with a shred of honour and resign.
That was to underestimate a chairman with the biggest brass neck in the business.
Was such sane acceptance of fate really so likely in a weekend world of chaos where a Grand Prix is held in Las Vegas, cars are destroyed by something akin to a pop up sprinkler and a lawsuit is consequently filed on behalf of 35,000 ejected fans, alleging breach of contract, negligence and deceptive trade practices.
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Was it likely in a weekend world of chaos where an Aussie wearing a T-shirt saying "Stop bombing Palestine" is able to scale a 3m wire fence, avoid 6000 police and reach the world's most famous cricketer in the one day final of the sport.
Was it likely in a weekend world of chaos where pro golfer Joost Luiten hurls his driver up a tree after a poor drive at the ninth, chucks two more irons up the tree which also get stuck in the branches, kicks his bag in disgust, and continues his round three clubs short of the full set.
That act of angry self destruction somehow seemed like a metaphor for the whole crazy world of sport at the moment.
Even after the board of Rugby Australia held an emergency meeting and unanimously voted out their chair, McLennan was unrepentant.
He observed that "sometimes life isn't fair" and "the grapevine works in mysterious ways," an oblique reference to Marvin Gaye perhaps that is currently puzzling music scholars. Anything is possible.
Maybe the past few months have really all been part of a smear campaign dreamed up by a global conspiracy that finally got its man when it brought down McLennan.
Right now the only constant that we seem able to hold onto is chaos.
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