Told yers.
There is no God.
At least no just God, and certainly no God of reward, redemption and resurrection.
For there were the Wallabies on Saturday night, on the edge of pulling off a Miracle for the Ages, a lambasted team coming off the week from hell, about to beat the finest rugby team in the history of the world, only ...
Only for the All Blacks to score two late tries, the last with just two seconds left on the clock, to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and consign the Wallabies to a wretched, soul-destroying one point-loss.
There is NO God.
And then ... the true denouement. For while rugby remains the game they play in heaven, rugby politics is the game they play in hell, and only a short time after the match was over, Wallaby coach Ewen McKenzie announced he didn't want to play any more.
On the grounds that he was not sure he could still command the respect of the players and staff, he had resigned that morning – win, lose or draw the All Blacks match – and "the easiest thing for me to do is to exit stage left," whereupon he did exactly that.
John Eales called the vision of the shattered Wallabies coach heading off down the tunnel, on his own, "one of the saddest things I've seen in sport", and it is hard to argue.
Only 12 months ago, McKenzie had taken over the reins from Robbie Deans with a great resumé, huge respect within the game, and clear ideas on how to proceed.
And despite it all, he really did achieve things, not least guiding the Wallabies against the world champions, the All Blacks, to the stage that, with just three more points in the right matches – one more point in the opening 12-12 draw, and two more points last night – they could have won the Bledisloe for the first time since forever!
But it was not to be.
(Hey, did I mention there is no God?)
So McKenzie goes and Australian rugby must look for its third coach in just over 12 months, ideally ready to take over this very week, as the Wallabies leave for the spring tour next Friday.
Who should it be?
This time, at last, amid we squabbling masses with cauliflower ears, there is no debate.
It has to be Michael Cheika. He has the track record, the ambition and precisely the kind of schtick the Wallabies need right now. McKenzie was brought down by a curious combination of player power and player ill-discipline, which saw the Wallaby results drift south.
No one who knows Cheika can doubt that he will knock those two problems on the head in a matter of minutes. He already has respect from the Waratah nucleus of the Wallabies, as he so successfully coached them to the Super title, and, of the rest, those few who don't get the message early will be advised that there is a bus leaving in five minutes and they should be under it.
At the Waratahs, Cheika was notable for a back-to-basics approach, well away from mumbo-jumbo touchy-feely nonsense, and the Australian rugby community is in the mood for exactly that.
Under Cheika's command the Waratahs not only won, they won brilliantly, playing hugely entertaining football that we could all be proud of and by the end of last season the turnstiles were starting to swing once more.
As to the staffing issue and management structure that was also obviously problematic for McKenzie, it would also surprise me if that is an issue for Cheika. I suppose he had other staff at the Waratahs, but I never heard about them. He is not a one-man band, but he runs the show, and it is unimaginable that an in-air dispute between a player and a manager over a T-shirt could get out of hand within ear-shot of him, let alone proceed to destroy the fabric of Australian rugby without him settling it.
Cheika is the man. If he accepts, he should also be asked to still do the Waratahs next year before the international season starts. Then Robbie Deans should be persuaded to return from Japan and, as the most successful Super rugby coach in history, take over the Waratahs to make them the most successful rugby team in Super history.
The ARU, meantime? They must urgently lobby the IRB to have Test matches reduced to 79 minutes and 30 seconds. This whole 80-minute thing is just not working for us.
Twitter: @Peter_Fitz
