Originally Posted by
chiraag
I certainly do not begrudge Dave for taking the role to do the best thing for his fellow coaches and players. It does sting though seeing the ARU and Rebels get exactly what they wanted all along. Will be great if the article saying he'll be coaching the Force in the IPRL is true
Definitely holding a very big grudge against the FUARU though, and it's pretty much killed my interest in the Wallabies and Super Rugby, which is very sad. Was very much looking forward to attending my 5th Rugby World Cup in a row in Japan to follow the Wallabies, but certainly won't be doing that any more.
However, I do also think that the parties involved in reviewing and signing the "Alliance" agreement, and formulating our legal battle have a fair bit of accountability in the Force being no longer.
Term means the period commencing on the Commencement Date and ending on the expiry date of the last of the SANZAR Broadcast Agreements (being 31 December 2020) or, subject to clause 2.4, if the last of the SANZAR Broadcast Agreements is terminated or renegotiated earlier as a result of the renegotiation of the commercial terms of a broadcast arrangement, such earlier date.
Blind Freddy could see that the definition of the Term in the contract (as below) left us wide open to being vulnerable for disbanding. The end date of the term should have been an unambiguous December 31, 2020 with no qualifications. Furthermore, it should've actually been something like 2026 instead if Pulver & co were promising that the Force would be around for a long time to come, and we were the first ones to accept the centralisation cost saving measures. Yes we needed money so weren't in the strongest bargaining position, but the ARU was also bound to field 5 teams so couldn't just let us fold. These should have been non-negotiable terms from our end to ensure our continued existence. It's been obvious for some time now that we were far less supported than the other franchises, so we should not have been blindsighted to a backstabbing.
Further to that, our legal challenge to our being cut was way too narrow and only concentrated on this definition. Even Justice Hammerschlag found this surprising as noted in the summary of the appeal. Why we didn't pursue other items like the contract and sale not being done in good faith, and the ARU not acting in good faith as required by the agreement (and I'm sure there's probably more we could have argued) was clearly a big mistake and we had all of our legal eggs in that basket.
In the end, Lavan has done pretty well out of this with a very large legal bill, despite being one party that I assume would have reviewed the Alliance Agreement and also formulating our legal defense. I know everyone at Lavan / RugbyWA / Western Force was probably doing their best to do the right thing, but it seems like there have been a lot of mis-steps by those in charge that have led to this outcome, and just saying that they were hoodwinked by the ARU isn't really a great defense.