Raelene Castle’s made great play of her experience during her application to become CEO of Sport New Zealand. This is what she told “Locker Room” in an interview shortly after her appointment.

“But that’s where you hope your experience comes to the fore because you have faced similar changes before.”

Given the shambles of Olivia Podmore’s death, Alan Thompson’s impeachment and my judicial hearing, I resolved to check out the experience of Ms Castle. Had it equipped her handle business problems or was she a castle built on sand – “and it fell, and great was the fall of it?”

The best indicator of Castle’s reaction to stress is found in the case of her handling of the Israel Folau dispute when she was CEO of Rugby Australia. The most balanced report on what went on in that case was published in “The Sydney Morning Herald”.

This delightful paragraph summarises the paper’s position:

“How can she (that’s Castle) sack a player on “principle”, preach about the importance of “inclusiveness”, talk about her code “standing for something”, insist that Rugby Australia has “a strong legal footing” … and then slither out the back door of mediation for the sake of “moving on”?

“The Sydney Morning Herald” expanded on that general theme with the following clarifications:

She took over from the gibbery Bill Pulver and the general consensus at the time was things couldn’t get any worse for rugby. Somehow, on her watch, they have. She should never have re-signed Folau to a $5 million, four-year deal after he had made a series of anti-gay social media posts. Sure, she’d buggered a few things up. She’d sacked Folau before speaking to him. She didn’t insist on a social media clause in his contract.

So why did Castle and Rugby Australia roll over and settle with Folau? Why did they apologise? If they were right, if they had come this far, why not take it to the end of the line? Once again, Castle didn’t make the tough call of taking the matter to court. Even if Folau won, she’d have left with her head held high. If you start a fight like this, you have to finish it.”

Wow – doesn’t that speak volumes. It is basically saying Castle chickens out. Her preferred option is to pay in the hope the problem will go away. She dresses that up with terms like “providing certainly” and insurance will cover most of the cost, but that is all lipstick on a pig. She screwed up and in the Folau case was happy to roll-over and have Rugby Australia pay to get her out of a hole.

The lessons as they apply to Podmore, Thompson and my case are clear. Stick to what is right. Sport New Zealand will make offers and come up with plastic bags of money – anything to avoid being held responsible for the stuff-ups that caused the problem. At least from what I can see, that is the experience Castle has made so much of after her appointment to Sport New Zealand. After all Sport New Zealand have already paid Podmore $20,000 “hush money”. At least that was what Podmore and her friends were calling it. Folau all over again.

In other words, hold Castle responsible for Podmore’s death. Make her carry the can for Thompson’s impeachment. Eventually her experience with Folau has taught us she will roll over and pay – especially if it saves her own skin. Use that knowledge, benefit from it, because as sure as God made little green apples, she would hang you out to dry if the boot was on the other foot.    

And so, what did Sport New Zealand buy when it hired Raelene Castle? An Australian cast-off? Probably. Another foreign failure? There is that concern. The scriptures (slightly modified) in Matthew explain it better than me:

A foolish man built his castle on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that castle, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

However, whatever you do, whatever the outcome you know Castle will tell the world its purpose was to achieve “the maximum impact against its strategic outcomes.” She tried to convince Australia that was her Folau victory. They didn’t believe her and within weeks she was here hunting for New Zealand’s top job in sport. And she got it. Clearly you can fool some of the people all the time.