By WYNNE GRAY
Recycling Rob Fisher as chairman will not ease New Zealand's rugby worries.
He and IRB chairman Vernon Pugh have clashed for some time, and that working relationship deteriorated during the World Cup hosting fiasco.
During that shambles, Australian officials grew increasingly disenchanted with Fisher's diplomacy.
Privately, they suggested that if New Zealand wanted to restore the transtasman relationship, Fisher was not the right replacement should McCaw be removed.
Sources said Fisher was given an ultimatum to leave Rugby World Cup Ltd - he said he resigned - and his position as deputy chairman to Pugh on the IRB had also eroded.
His reappointment as NZRFU chairman will not reinvent transtasman rugby harmony.
And the rise of former Maori All Black Paul Quinn - a board member for only four months - to be Fisher's deputy shows the dearth of contenders and experience in the group running the country's national game.
That shortage was evident in 1999 when Murray McCaw replaced Fisher, who quit after that year's World Cup disaster.
Fisher had backed John Hart as coach, and promised to resign if the side did not win the Webb Ellis Trophy.
When he honoured that pledge, the NZRFU had no apparent successor.
The board did not go for his deputy, John Spicer, perhaps believing the Otago stalwart was not strong enough for international negotiations.
Instead, it chose McCaw.
He had not long been on the board, but could talk the good talk and was apparently on the same wavelength as chief executive David Rutherford.
Since then, the board has shown uncertainty about Rutherford.
Not long before his contract was renewed for another three years, there was some heavy debate about his performances. McCaw also felt the heat.
Both finished up yesterday after the public release of the Eichelbaum Report.
Take your pick with McCaw, it doesn't really matter. He was pushed, sacked or resigned as chairman.
In Rutherford's case, the process of his departure was crucial. If he had to go he needed to leave with a significant redundancy package.
On a salary which would compare with those at the top of the All Black pile, he had to make sure he went with payment for most, if not all, of the 2 1/2 years left on his contract.
He has spent a lot of time with lawyers in recent months.
After looking at the Eichelbaum Report and the conclusions which brought McCaw and Rutherford's demise, the board was then faced with picking successors.
The choice for chairman was an indictment of the governance shift in 1996 from the council of delegates to the nine-man board.
Spicer was deputy, but regarded more as a committee man, just like another IRB delegate, Tim Gresson.
Two councillors, Quinn and Warwick Syers, were new; Steve Lunn was yet to make a mark; Fisher had experience but there were concerns about whether he could be retreaded; Chris Liddell and Craig Norgate were businessmen with strong credentials but worries about their time and rugby background.
Apparently there was some support for Liddell, but his work with Carter Holt Harvey meant he could not give enough time to the demanding job of chairman.
Was it the system or the candidates? That can be debated, but the Boston Report did not deliver a framework for this crisis.
The balance of the board is out of whack. It has far too much business background and not enough rugby knowledge and experience.
When the provinces agreed to the birth of the truncated NZRFU board, they also agreed that the change should be reviewed.
That has never happened.
When they gathered yesterday in the Resolution Room of the Grand Chancellor Hotel in Wellington to hear explanations from the board about the World Cup, someone should have reactivated that review.
Sir Thomas Eichelbaum's full report
The French government and FFR were blamed for failures of hosting the 2023 event.