Queensland Reds in shock bid for whiz kid James O'Connor
By Wayne Smith | June 19, 2009
Article from: The Australian
THE turmoil-ridden Queensland Reds have launched a dramatic 11th-hour bid to snatch teenage Australia hero James O'Connor back from the Western Force.
In the same week as forwards coach Mark Bell and team manager Brendan Morris were sacked, the Reds belatedly entered the contest for O'Connor, 18, just when it seemed he was working through the final details before re-signing with the Force.
Reds chief executive Ken Freer confirmed that he had spoken a number of times this week to O'Connor's agent, Anthony Piccone.
"I know it's a fair way down the track with the Force and I respect that, but if there is an interest from O'Connor, we'd be very keen to talk to him," Freer said.
It's not surprising that the Reds should make a pitch for O'Connor. He was, after all, a student of Brisbane's Nudgee College and his parents still live on the Gold Coast. But what is staggering is that the Reds should have left it so late to show interest in O'Connor after all the other Australian Super 14 clubs had fallen over themselves in the scramble to get his signature.
Whether this late surge of interest is any way related to the uncertainty over the future of the Reds' primary recruiter Ben Whitaker is unclear as Whitaker was not able to be contacted on Thursday for comment.
But it is understood he resigned in protest at the manner in which Bell and Morris had been treated. Freer, however, insisted Whitaker remained on staff - for the moment.
"He had some reservations about what happened (to Bell and Morris) but at this point in time he hasn't resigned," Freer said.
Whitaker has, by virtually any measure, the hardest job in Australian rugby, of trying to attract players to a team that has finished in the bottom three on the Super rugby ladder for six seasons.
Far from being able to lure new talent to Brisbane, Whitaker has struggled to retain the players he has, with Hugh McMeniman having announced he is heading overseas and Digby Ioane threatening to leave.
Ironically, Ioane is being touted as a possible Force recruit, barely 18 months after he broke his contract with the Perth team to return to Queensland because he felt homesick.
While Wallabies five-eighth Berrick Barnes desperately wants to stay with the Reds, he has decided to defer his decision until he sees the outcome of the review process.
And on Thursday, another Peter Rogers-managed player, former Test hooker Sean Hardman, followed suit, saying he would not make up his mind whether to continue his career until he had some idea in what direction the Reds were heading.
When pressed on who it was conducting the review process, Freer offered up only one name - head coach Phil Mooney.
That in itself is indicative of the state of Queensland rugby because, after two seasons at the helm of a team that has won only six of 26 Super 14 matches, Mooney should be the primary focus of the review, not the man conducting it.
However, indications are that the players themselves have swayed the review. Immediately after the Super 14 season ended, the Reds players went through a two-week process in which they documented everything they felt had had an impact on their performance. Their input was collated and summarised and studied this week by senior staff.
"They (the players) have certainly had a voice," Freer said.
Bell's sacking has thrown open the question of who the Reds will recruit as their new forwards coach. It's a particularly exasperating question since former Wallabies set-piece coach Michael Foley could have been secured but was allowed to slip through Queensland's fingers for the Waratahs to snap him up.
Freer insists the Reds are not targeting anyone and specifically have made no approach to World Cup coach John Connolly, even though he was one of a number of key Queensland rugby identities - along with Mooney, Jeff Miller, Alec Evans, Dick Marks, Andrew Slack, Roger Gould, Julian Gardner, Daniel Herbert and QRU chairman Peter Lewis - who took part in a round-table discussion on Wednesday night on the parlous state of the game in the state.
But if Queensland hopes to retain Hardman, it might need to find a replacement for Bell sooner rather than later.
"That would be one of the first questions I'd be finding an answer to," said Hardman, whose career will hinge on his planned meeting with Mooney.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...015651,00.html
