was this part of the plan or has the administration lost the plot?
Hardcore Water Polo Australia fans who have enough time to scroll through 12 hours of social media posts and stories may have noticed the minor announcement that the existing head coach for the women’s national team was was being stood down, and that the new application will soon open. Everyone else probably missed it.
Delivering incredibly important news for Australian women’s water polo via a 10 second Instagram story with a “swipe up for a link” to the WPA website (which frankly nobody reads in the best of times) is not exactly the most committed way to begin a hunt for the leader of the elite female program for the next four years, nor an appropriate way to update their stake holders.
Perhaps they were petrified of all the potential backlash from the general public, which Water Polo Australia, despite deleting as many comments on social media as possible, still seems to cop unconditionally. Perhaps, more logically, their tactic is to play dumb and tread quietly and no one will notice.
The most disturbing part of this saga is the difficulty in determining which is worse: the possibility that the CEO Richard Mcinness and his administration have a clear plan on going forward and still act this way, or the idea that there may be a lack of a plan entirely.
If they did have a plan, than one must ask logically why on earth did they bother to recently prolong the contract with their coach until Paris 2024, and then change direction abruptly?
This entire job application advertisement is a complete waste of time and just another way the board shows how little respect they have for their stakeholders and the entire water polo community in Australia.
The job advert creation process on their official Facebook page can be summed up as the equivalent of: “Hey can someone please run down to the pool and take a photo on their iPhone 4, scribble a few words together, and add a link to the job description”.
This looks like an appropriate ad for a learn-to-swim coach opening.
The lack of effort into the coaching hunt is a massive sign of disrespect to every child who plays water polo in this country- whose aspirations of Olympic glory will be severely limited by the crooked organization which places no effort into funding or finding leaders for Paris and onwards, and ultimately, whose efforts in the pool and fees paid to their clubs are really just a method of making money for WPA to fund side ventures at the beach and pay eight general managers. You have to ask- with a 7 million dollar turnover listed in the 2019 and 2020 Financial Annual Report- if WPA isn’t funding National League, charges clubs exorbitant amounts to play in junior competitions, and cuts development programs for juniors (NSWIS) and both Olympic coaches- who exactly is being funded?
Ultimately the ones who truly suffer are the athletes, both junior and elite. With 3 new CEO’s and 3 new coaches in the last five years, no local competitions in lead up to Tokyo and Paris looming less than 3 years away- it’s not looking promising.
Water U Know 
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