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I've been trying to look at both sides of this argument tonight over dinner and a few pints. (My parmie was fantastic as well if you're wondering).
Obviously everyone knows where I stand from a force fan's perspective. It's shit that the other clubs are circling the half dead carcass waiting for it to get up or die.
But at the same time (in particular) the other Australian teams need to ensure they are doing all they can to ensure that they have the best talent representing them that they can find and sign.
This is where Australia needs a centralised contracting system. So that the governing body has the power to pause all contract talks during such a time of uncertainty. It obviously won't stop coaches and recruiters "touching base" with players. But at least then it allows for everyone to not seem like a vulture.
Can't do a lot about the international interest, as they don't give a shit about the ARU or the RUPA. But it is what it is.
(Maybe eventually with this "global season" idea we'll see a signing/trading window similar to what other major sports do, but we shall see)
I think there will be a fair number talking to overseas clubs. Going from a starter with the Rebels or Force to a fringe player with a club that is already full of protected Wallabies isn't very palatable.
Cheika is going to have LESS Australian based players and MORE overseas players who have not qualified under the Gitteau rule.
How is that going to be good for Australian rugby????
I would actively encourage our boys to go overseas if the ARU axes the Force.
Proudly Western Australian; Proudly supporting Western Australian rugby
Adam Coleman and TPN have already be slated to back to the Tahs.....no surprise until this sorted out
I reckon any players with a current Force/Rebels deal and an ARU deal could potentially end up in the courts.
The ARU said that they would honor contracts but the players had to go to other clubs as ordered. Well what if they don't want their ARU deal honored? Whats the ARU going to do? Sack them?
I like Cheika's comment re Coleman and DHP .. They can stay in Perth and play club rugby and get paid till they feel like coming east.. Well just pay them.. What a joke.... If I was a SR rugby player in any team in Australia I would be feeling a bit uncomfortable at present .. If the problems of the ARU are not addressed really quickly there may not be any SR next season.... If the force is dropped then we will play it out in the courts.. If the Rebels are dropped they will take it thru the courts.. If nothing sorted SANZAAR wiil take it thru the courts and cull the ARU from the SR tournament.. and Sue the ARU.. End result a broke code with no where to go.. Over 150 players and management with no jobs.. I can see this still being an ongoing thing well into the June test series and even into the Rugby Championship window.. Thats just the Australian crap..
Now you have got the South Africans.. They will be watching the ARU and thinking if they don't drop a team why should we and then the players will have there say and their plans could all be up shit creek also..
If the SA and AUS players all get together they could get rid of the SANZAAR board and form a breakaway league and leave the kiwis holding the baby.. or do the Australians just lay down and die ??? Just a few scenario"s that could unfold...
This is a problem here with the so-called contract re-signing freeze ...
Sean McMahon poised to quit Australia for stint in Japan
The Australian 12:00AM May 15, 2017
Wayne Smith
Dynamic Melbourne Rebels backrower Sean McMahon is poised to sign a two-year deal with a Japanese club, although Wallabies coach Michael Cheika has not given up on him playing for Australia.
McMahon, who is only 22 but already has 15 Tests to his credit, is precisely the sort of brilliant young player the Wallabies desperately need to keep in this country but it is understood he is disillusioned with aspects of how he has been treated in Australia.
Certainly, the Wallabies coaching staff and his fellow players speak in awe about the physicality and aggression McMahon brings to training sessions but that same respect reportedly is not being replicated in terms of contract offers from the Australian Rugby Union.
A spokesman for the ARU said Cheika did not believe that McMahon had yet signed any overseas contracts but was aware of the Japanese interest.
If he is signing for the money, then Cheika will wish him well because Australia simply cannot match the sums being offered in Japan and Europe. But if he still wants to play for Australia, then Cheika is hopeful of persuading him to stay.
Recently married, McMahon returned to rugby for the first time this season for the Rebels after spending the past seven months in rehabilitation with ankle syndesmosis but slotted back into the Rebels brilliantly when brought into the match against the Queensland Reds at the start of the second half.
With the Japanese season partially overlapping the Australian season, McMahon might choose to make himself unavailable for selection from October. Theoretically, he still would have scope to return to Australia in time to win World Cup selection in 2019.
Whether the Rebels are still around in 2019 — indeed 2018 — to welcome McMahon back is very much the question of the moment. There was a pall hanging over AAMI Park on Saturday night as the Rebels attempted to play the Reds while being torn apart by strong speculation that the ARU has changed horses midstream and is no longer focusing on the Force as the prime team to cut from Super Rugby, but rather has switched to the Melbourne side.
McMahon’s intent to move offshore to continue his rugby is not believed to be tied to the current speculation about the ARU’s plans to cut one of its five teams, but there is a sense that his departure could be part of a stampede for the exit. Indeed, even if the Rebels somehow do survive to play on in Super Rugby next year, the belief is that the club is effectively as good as doomed.
Although there is a moratorium on contracting players, the belief in the Melbourne club is that the Waratahs, Brumbies and Reds have been able to secure about 25 or 26 players for their 2018 roster and will now wait to top up their squads from whichever club the ARU chooses to axe.
With so many Rebels players coming off contract, and with so many off-field staff fearing for their own jobs, the club is haemorrhaging personnel beyond the capacity of head coach Tony McGahan or general manager of football operations Baden Stephenson to stop it.
“Naturally, self-interest takes over at this point and that’s why I was so proud of the players to stand and fight so hard against the Reds,” said McGahan.
In the end, however, the Reds broke a 24-24 deadlock with just over a minute to play with a try by Samu Kerevi to seal a 29-24 win. Despite the Reds’ failure to land their goals, it still was a five tries to two victory.
“That’s pretty much where we are at the moment,” McGahan said. “When they needed to, they had four 100-cap players, Quade Cooper, George Smith, Stephen Moore and Scott Higginbotham, and Kerevi to steady the ship.”
Reds coach Nick Stiles, who is a close friend of McGahan, admitted that this win, though welcome in terms of Queensland’s season, was like no other.
“Talking to people who are passionate rugby people and just to see the despair in their faces was a really sad thing,” Stiles said.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spor...08745b4234b368
THE Super Rugby downsizing saga is dragging on and on, and accordingly, so is the ARU’s contract freeze.
We hear clubs and players are now doing plenty of business, however.
Most clubs are not only negotiating with players and their agents, they’re signing letters of intent and chucking them in the top drawer.
It’s all happening with the ARU’s knowledge.
As a cosignatory to every Super Rugby contract, the ARU’s freeze effectively boils down to them not rubberstamping contracts. When the freeze lifts, they can expect plenty in the mail.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/spo...ac9358e1020114
Isn't it fantastic to see that 75 - 78 players will be selected for the Wallabies this year?
OK, that was pretty tongue-in-cheek, I realise that a lot of those players will be contracted beyond 2018, but it's still bullshit.
The other issue is that The Force and the Rebels, amid current speculation, won't be signing anybody, Wallaby or not!
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If the ARU genuinely cared about either side it's trying to cull it would give the surviving franchise an option to re-sign its players before registering a new contract.
But the ARU doesn't give two shits about anyone outside of NSW and Qld so here we are.
I don't begrudge players wanting certainty, it's something that the entire Rugby communities in Victoria and WA would love to have.
If the Force are the victims of the ARU's incompetence I hope the majority of our players take up deals overseas.