How the best was won
BY JOHN-PAUL MOLONEY
28/02/2009 10:26:00 AM
Last Friday ACT Brumbies coach Andy Friend called into his office his two young flyhalves, Matt Toomua and Christian Lealiifano. He told them news was due to break the next day that Matt Giteau was rejoining his old team in 2010.
Friend's message was simple: ''It's happening tomorrow, put it out of your mind. You boys are our No10s this year. Next year is next year.''
Stephen Hoiles was called in soon after and told the news. The newly appointed skipper was hardly surprised, given the months of speculation that Giteau would leave the Force.
But the timing of the announcement, just hours before the Brumbies' first home match against the Canterbury Crusaders, worried him.
''It was the day of our game and I hoped it wouldn't distract our blokes, particularly those blokes in Matt's position,'' Hoiles said.
''If it was someone in my position it probably would be playing in the back of your mind somewhere.''
The next morning The Canberra Times reported that Giteau had agreed to terms with the Brumbies and the Force quickly called a press conference in Perth.
Giteau said, ''I had to make a decision and I decided to go back to play where it all started.''
The timing of the news that so worried Hoiles has, a week later, made for an enthralling situation at Canberra Stadium tonight.
Whereas Giteau was booed when he played for the Force against the Brumbies here in 2007, tonight he should get an altogether different reception.
To be the key member of one team playing against another team you've pledged to join next season is an unusual and no doubt conflicting position to be in.
How will Giteau feel when he's cheered not for what he does tonight, but for the decision he made last week? How would he feel if he made the errant pass or missed the tackle that caused the Force to lose?
It's for these and other reasons Giteau hoped his club switch would stay a secret until after this match.
But it didn't. Now he has to deal with the weird situation the best he can.
For the Brumbies it has been a quietly jubilant week. The prodigal son's return is a wonderful storyline, especially given the already positive mood created by an undefeated start to the season.
Brumbies chief executive Andrew Fagan had known for months Giteau was keen to return home, but it wasn't until the official word reached him that he finally accepted it as fact.
''We were pretty confident that on the personal factors and the rugby factors we had the winning bid,'' Fagan said. ''But when you get to the financial factors, with the figures being bandied around in WA, we just didn't know.
''I'd been confident he'd stay in 2006 because of the personal and rugby factors, but ultimately their offer blew us out of the water.''
Fagan first took a call from Giteau in June last year, asking to meet with him in Sydney. The Wallabies were in camp before the domestic Test season and the pair met at a Manly cafe.
Giteau had just been through a bitter split with his former player manager and was looking after his own affairs.
A few months earlier he had re-signed with the Australian Rugby Union until 2011, but with the option to join another Super 14 province after 2009.
Giteau told Fagan about some of the troubles he was going through at the Force, particularly the unpaid money he had been promised by Firepower, the third-party sponsor that lured him to Perth in the first place.
Fagan filled Giteau in on the appointment of Andy Friend as new Brumbies coach and about player acquisitions.
Soon after Friend arrived in Australia from the UK, where he was coach of the London Harlequins, and met with Giteau.
Asked this week about the pitch he made to the Wallabies playmaker, Friend said there wasn't one.
''He actually sold it himself. He said he loves Canberra Stadium, he loved playing for the Brumbies. His family's here and he said he'd like an opportunity to come back. My side of it was to say 'if you'd like to come back, we'd love to have you'.''
Poker millionaire Joe Hachem, cricket great Shane Warne and the Queen's granddaughter Zara Phillips have one thing in common with Matt Giteau. All are clients of Sports Entertainment Limited.
The chief executive of SEL is James Erskine, who set up the Australian arm of sports management giant IMG in the late 1970s. Erskine claims a long and distinguished list of former sporting clients including Muhammad Ali, Greg Norman and Tiger Woods.
It was Erskine's daughter, Sophie, who had first suggested to her dad over dinner that he should take on Giteau as a client.
Erskine thought that was ''an interesting idea'' and set up a meeting with Giteau in Manly a few days after Fagan's visit. Giteau became Erskine's only rugby playing client.
Erskine told The Canberra Times this week, ''Matt is a matchwinner and I like the idea of managing people who can have a huge impact on whatever sport they do.''
At their first encounter, Giteau told Erskine his various rugby ambitions and also of the mess his third-party sponsorship deal with now discredited fuel technology company Firepower had become.
It was clear to Erskine the 26-year-old needed help establishing a long-term plan.
''I think he's had all sorts of people looking after him and I think, to be brutally honest, he was all over the place in what he was doing,'' Erskine said.
''It's easy to say in hindsight, but one of the problems with the Firepower deal was that the numbers were unrealistic. I'd assume that was the formula for the failure of the company, and I might be a cynic, but the thought you could put a pill in your car and it'd go further I find a bit strange.
''I'm not criticising the fact Matt agreed to the deal I don't think many of us would have said no to that sort of money but when it fell over, he had to reassess the things that were important to him.''
Those most important things, according to what Giteau said last weekend, were furthering his playing career and being close to his family in the Canberra area.
But clearly there needed to be significant third-party support to make the move east financially sensible.
Erskine's task was to tap the ACT business community. Helping him was Giteau's Canberra-based accountant and also his financial adviser, Steve Johnston.
Johnston, who works for Macquarie Bank and is a committee member at the Tuggeranong Vikings, had the difficult, and ultimately fruitless, task of chasing up the missing Firepower money after the company's owner, Tim Johnston, fled overseas.
Erskine soon found that not only were there businesses in town who were keen to help bring Giteau home, they moved in the same circles. They were easily brought together in a loose consortium.
The small size of Canberra's business community, which made it impossible to keep Giteau in 2006, became a strength.
After email exchanges and meetings at cafes and restaurants, the group came up with what is believed to have been a $400,000 third-party sponsorship package.
Among the group were energy provider ActewAGL and IT firm Dataflex, whose owner Brian Evans was ''over the moon'' when Giteau agreed to come home.
''All the people who've decided to chip in, if you asked any of us 'why do you want him back', we'd all say it's because we love Canberra, we want to see the Brumbies win and we like to see Canberra succeeding against the best in the world,'' Evans said.
''My business case is no more and no less than that.''
Significantly, the package fell well short of a late rival bid from Western Force businesses, reportedly by as much as $400,000 a year.
That proved Giteau's decision to return home wasn't motivated by money, as his move away had so clearly been.
When the sponsorship is added to his Brumbies and Wallabies contacts and the match payments he'll receive, Giteau should earn in excess of $1million a year.
Erskine said, ''Rather than having one company responsible for the finances of Matt Giteau, there'll be five or six in the Canberra area. And the deals that have been made are commercially sensible. They stand up. That is why it is more secure.''
While contracting rules forced the Brumbies to steer clear of the third-party negotiations, Fagan and the Brumbies' bean counters have been thrilled by the strong interest Giteau's return has created.
''We've been overwhelmed by responses from sponsors, corporate partners and members. I've had emails from people saying 'when can I sign up for 2010 membership,'' Fagan said.
However the Brumbies team itself is blocking out thoughts of next year.
After two tough opening round wins and with no injuries, they have reason to be optimistic of their finals chances this year, with Lealiifano in the No10 jersey.
Hoiles said, ''There's been next to no talk about it, and I say that honestly. It's not a throwaway cliche that we were ecstatic to have him and he'll do wonders for the team, but it really is out of our control now and can't affect anything this year.''
Giteau's return next year will be the most significant homecoming in Australian rugby history.
It will seriously damage the Force, on and off the field, and will likely lead to other players following Giteau out of Perth.
It will give the Brumbies one of the sharpest attacking rapiers in world rugby. But tonight, probably for the last time, he'll be aiming it squarely at them.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news...px?storypage=0
