Richard Harry views the Wallabies as a broken machine.
Too many times squeaky wheels have been greased over and now the once-shiny, high-powered vehicle is a beaten-up jalopy struggling to get out of second gear.
But the 1999 World Cup-winning prop believes new coach Ewen McKenzie is the right mechanic to fix the real problem – a poor culture.
Harry knows the absolute importance of a strong team culture; how a side can thrive when it’s tight knit and what can happen when it’s not.
He was part of a Wallabies outfit that dominated at the turn of the century in a golden era for Australian rugby. It had leaders across the park in John Eales, George Gregan, Tim Horan, David Wilson, Matt Burke and Toutai Kefu among others.
They won World Cups, Bledisloe Cups, Tri-Nations trophies and more to stock a full cupboard of silverware.
At present, that cupboard is almost bare as they try to defend the Cook Cup against England at Twickenham on Sunday morning (AEDT).
This year, the Wallabies have won just three of 10 Tests as they lost the British and Irish Lions series and were wiped out by the All Blacks and Springboks in the Rugby Championship.
“Good teams know how to win,” Harry said in London. “That’s a skill in itself and Australia don’t have that at the moment.
“That culture is fractured and Ewen has to piece it back together. And it is complex. It’s very hard, very difficult, to build and takes only a moment to break so he has a bit of work to do.
“It is a little bit like turning the Titanic.
“But he’s definitely going about it the right way.”
McKenzie, a former teammate, rival and coach of Harry, hasn’t wasted any time in putting his mark on the Australian Test side since taking over from Robbie Deans at the end of July.
After three immediate heavy defeats to New Zealand and South Africa, he vowed to leave no stone unturned to fix problems on and off the field.
McKenzie said he wouldn’t be afraid to make big changes.
That was on September 8.
Since then he has dropped world-class halfback Will Genia, sent problem child James O’Connor packing, sacked James Horwill as skipper, elevated Test rookie Ben Mowen to the captaincy and made Quade Cooper vice-captain.
Heady stuff.
The prospect of a Mowen-Cooper Test leadership combination was so far removed from realistic thinking six months ago that bookmakers would have offered odds of a billion to one.
Genia, who was also sacked as stand-in skipper, and hooker Stephen Moore both emphasised the importance of every player improving team culture this week.
Moore even took personal responsibility for not doing more as a senior player under Deans as the likes of O’Connor, Kurtley Beale and Cooper (until he labelled the environment “toxic”) were given too much latitude.
Harry says Deans’ reluctance to take a hard line on the three amigos led to “a breakdown between management and the team”.
“You can’t have that disfunction,” he said. “If you lose that functionality the whole thing breaks down.
“Then you have the broken things in the side where the young guys do whatever they want.
“Is it Gen Y? I don’t think that. I just think the fact when they come in their shit behaviour is validated and once it’s validated once they do it again and spoiled children will continue to be selfish.”
Genia recalled how McKenzie immediately forged a strong culture when he took over the then-basketcase Queensland Reds in 2010.
Their first overseas trip was to South Africa and the new coach “embraced” a first week in boring Bloemfontein.
“He said to me that he thought it was a really good thing because we had nothing else to do, it meant we had to spend time with each other and that set the tone for his coaching reign,” Genia said.
“It was all about the culture and the environment and the bonds you build and how important that is when it comes time to play big games.”
Within 15 months, Queensland were Super Rugby champions and their gutsy goal-line defence defence was just as influential as their razzle-dazzle attack.
While Test results will be the proof of the pudding, Genia feels the same bonds being forged in the Wallabies.
New captain Mowen witnessed a similar transformation at the Brumbies when Jake White took over in late 2011, and also sees the same mix of hard work and mateship taking shape over the past two months.
“I have noticed quite a considerable shift (in culture),” he said. “You notice that through individual guys and also a team as a whole and I must say this is the most focussed I’ve seen the guys in my short time being involved.
“I know it’s a powerful formation when you get that (mix).”