Leinster great wades into Munster’s ‘bizarre failure of governance’ over ‘blow up in our face’ Roger Randle situation
Munster have been dealing with negative commentary over their appointment of Roger Randle, inset, as assistant coach (INPHO/Nick Elliott and Allstar Picture Library Ltd)
Former Ireland midfielder Gordon D’Arcy has called into question Munster’s recruitment of Roger Randle as their new attack coach next season.
The Irish province has come in for scrutiny since their April 15 announcement that they have signed the New Zealander as an assistant to Clayton McMillan on a two-year deal.
Randle assisted McMillan at the Chiefs, and it was to the Waikato-based franchise that he turned to when searching for a replacement for the departing Mike Prendergast, who is reportedly joining Bath in the English PREM next season.
It wasn’t long after Randle’s deal with Munster was confirmed that stories emerged about an historic rape allegation from 1997 made against the New Zealander when touring South Africa as a Hurricanes player.
“There should have been a very simple ‘no, you can’t have him'”
Randle has always denied the accusation, and charges made against him were dropped in Durban, but the incident from 29 years ago has become a lightning rod for concern following his signing by Munster.
Three former players, members of the province’s professional game board, resigned over a lack of consultation about the recruitment, and the situation left McMillan having to explain to the media his preference to bring Randle to Ireland rather than bring in a different coach.
Previous allegations of a sexual nature haven’t been well received in Irish rugby circles, as Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding were released by Ulster in 2018, while Chris Farrell also exited Munster in 2023 due to his association with a case in France dating back to his time as a Grenoble player.
Amid that type of contentious backdrop, ex-Leinster and Ireland centre D’Arcy can’t understand why Munster went ahead with their recruitment of Randle.
Munster boss gives blunt verdict on controversial appointment of ex-All Black
Speaking on The Counter Ruck podcast for The Irish Times, the two-time British and Irish Lions tourist claimed: “The bit for me with this is it’s a pretty big failure of governance with Randle coming in…
“Randle was doing a fine job in New Zealand. Ireland is a very interesting place and for what he was alleged to have done, Ireland is not a particularly forgiving place for that. It’s not a criticism, it’s not a judgement, it’s just an observation and it’s not right, wrong or indifferent.
“Where was the pushback from Munster governance. I don’t know who that is necessarily, but I would have thought that maybe somewhere on a board to say ‘you can’t have him’ to Clayton McMillan.
“You understand why Clayton McMillan wants him. They have worked together, and he can say he will add value to the club, but that is the bit for me where it fell down. There should have been a very simple ‘no, you can’t have him. Really sorry, find somebody else’… the club should absolutely have been saying it’s not a fit for him.
“You can understand why he [McMillan] would want him and why he should be allowed to continue to work and everything like that, but listen, here is the backdrop, here is Irish culture, here is Irish people and this is not an environment that he is going to do well, and it is going to cause more trouble.
“Even winning the Heineken Cup [the Investec Champions Cup], would you look at that and go the chances of one coach being the catalyst… every time there is a failure, or something comes up, this is going to be thrown in the hopper. It’s a bizarre failure of governance.”
Focusing on McMillan’s response to the storm that the Randle appointment has generated, D’Arcy added: “I fully accept that, and I have no problems with him saying that my job is to do the best job I feel I can and that this individual is the person that I think will add the most value. That is absolutely a fair point, and over it goes.
“(But) Clayton McMillan wasn’t brought up in Ireland; he doesn’t understand the backdrop, how political this can be. I’d say it is fairly consistent people’s views on incidents like this, so it really shouldn’t have been a big surprise to them [Munster] and it’s back to due diligence.
“Whatever your due diligence reports, there should have been somebody saying, ‘Lads, this is not going to work, we should not be doing it, we should not be supporting it because it is going to blow up in our face.’
“Like every board I have been on, there are non-execs, there are experienced businesspeople who see decisions like this come in and saying, ‘Have we considered this?’ And saying yes, he should absolutely pursue his career, but it doesn’t have to be here with us…
“This is where I say it is a failure of governance. Who was the person saying, ‘Really?’ Have we thought about what this is going to do? And every country is different, and that’s the important but here, and the backdrop for Ireland is this is not trivial here, it’s not trivial anywhere, but stuff like that, it’s always put very sharply in focus.”
