Sparks will fly at Macquarie Radio Network’s Annual General Meeting as angry shareholders, some of them high profile 2GB staff, voice their anger over the prospect of Alan Jones leaving the network to coach the Wallabies.

The MRN AGM begins this morning at 10am in the offices of Ferrier Hodgson in George Street Sydney.

MRN major shareholder John Singleton is already on record saying he will “lose a lot of money” if Alan Jones takes a year (or possibly more) off radio to become the full time coach of Australia’s international rugby team.

Earlier this week Jones followed up his very brief application letter with a one hour face to face interview. There are 4 other candidates for the job.

After the interview he spoke to journalists outside ARU headquarters, telling them the number of Wallabies coaches and other support staff should be reduced and commenting on the “skills shortage” in the team’s ranks.

Speculation about who will take the breakfast slot, if Jones wins the job, centres on morning show presenter Ray Hadley and regular breakfast fill-in Jason Morrison.

Despite dominant ratings, MRN last financial year reported a “disappointing annual net profit” according to analysts, down 6.1% to $5.3 million. Alan Jones has options on about 14% of the group’s shares.

Meanwhile John Laws revealed this week that he turned down an offer from John Singleton to jump ship to 2GB at the same time as Alan Jones, telling The Bulletin magazine:

“I never really felt comfortable around Alan… [he is] a terrific broadcaster and does a lot of good things for people, but I just don’t like the way he operates. It might be perfectly acceptable to him and other people, it’s just not something that sits comfortably with me.”

Over at 2UE, staff are barracking for Alan Jones to win, not the ratings, but the Wallabies job, so that the rival station, which will face lineup changes next year after John Laws leaves, can have a chance to win back some of the ratings points Jones takes from them each survey.