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Time for rugby to stem the bleeding from a thousand tiny cutsWAYNE SMITH
Follow @WayneKeithSmith
55 MINUTES AGO JUNE 1, 2019
Whenever the big issues come along — as in Israel Folau — Rugby Australia tends to play them with the straightest of bats, its inflexibility in imposing its rules often costing it public sympathy and support.
It’s the more mundane issues where it gets clouded with Rugby Australia, the lack of transparency, the special dispensations, the turning of a blind eye where it’s convenient, the general looseness of policy, the wastefulness. When Rugby Australia pauses to reflect on why it is not winning the hearts and minds of ordinary Australians, perhaps it needs to consider the little issues along with the big.
For starters, let’s examine the report that Will Skelton won’t be headed home until the end of the 2021 season but will still be made eligible to play for Australia at this year’s World Cup in September-October. If this were true, it would be …. how shall I say this?….wrong, wrong, wrong in every respect. Shamefully wrong. Skelton wants to have his cake and eat it too, taking a place in Australia’s 2019 World Cup squad — at whose expense, incidentally — but then not returning home for another two years, during which time he will make a small fortune playing two more seasons with Saracens.
Seriously, is that where the game is headed in Australia? If the Giteau Law is going to be administered in that fashion, then throw it out. If Rugby Australia intends to make a mockery of the very law it put in place to protect the standard of rugby in this country, then let’s be done with it entirely.
Select players based in Britain, Europe and Japan. Make it open slather. The upside is that we will get to watch the best Australian players performing for the Wallabies, no questions asked. Of course, the downside will be that almost none of those players wearing gold will be based in Australia. Why play in Super Rugby for $200,000 a year when $400,000 a year or more is available in the English Premiership or Pro14 or the French Top 14?
To be scrupulously fair, Rugby Australia is insisting that it has had no contact with Skelton or his manager, that it knows nothing about these press reports and that it is not bending any rules for him or anyone else.
That’s not entirely true, of course.
Matt Toomua played nine Tests in The Rugby Championship and on the spring tour last year yet didn’t return from the Leicester Tigers to play for the Rebels until mid-May. He made his starting debut last night for Melbourne against the Waratahs, in the third-last regular fixture of the season. Yet my understanding was that exemptions were granted only to players who would be playing the entire domestic season the following year.
One final thought on the Giteau Law. In my opinion, it actually is working. A domestic-based Wallabies is still an extremely formidable side. Ask yourself this: which overseas-based players who fail to reach the 60-Test threshold for automatic selection could possibly strengthen it? Skelton? Nic White? Toomua?
All excellent players, for sure. But consider this: all three left for overseas because they couldn’t command a regular Wallabies Test spot. They have been playing in a competition that certainly is physically tough and demanding but how would the leading sides in the Premiership perform against the Super Rugby leaders?
Consider this as well: for those players to be selected in the 31-man World Cup squad, they must take the place of some other players whose form has been on display week in, week out while they have played for their Australian franchises. So are Australians prepared to drop Rory Arnold or Rob Simmons for Skelton? Tate McDermott or Jake Gordon for White? Quade Cooper or Christian Lealiifano for Toomua? We will learn a lot about the character and standards of Australian rugby when the World Cup squad is announced on August 23.
This episode also shines a light on the influence of player agents.
By and large, they are acting honourably but a handful of agents most assuredly are not. They are acting for themselves, sending players interstate or overseas, wherever they can get the most money.
They are giving no consideration to how that move will impact their clients’ careers nor what damage they are doing to Australian rugby.
It irks me, this constant and slavish mimicking by Australia of everything they do in New Zealand rugby.
But the Kiwis do seem to have sorted out this problem and only do business with agents who operate in the best interests of both the player and the game.
Rumour has it that Scott Johnson, Rugby Australia’s director of rugby, is working on this issue. Certainly it is one entirely worthy of his time.
And when will Rugby Australia address the question of the salary cap? Rightly or wrongly, everyone assumes it is being rorted, that Melbourne are being given an unfair advantage. Rugby Australia were so desperate, so the story goes, to make sure Melbourne didn’t fall over after they were spared ahead of the Western Force that it granted the Rebels all manner of gifts, most notably a star-studded side. Indeed, some say Rugby Australia actually created the problem itself by notifying everyone during that turbulent 2017 that the salary cap would remain in play, and then abandoning it when the Force were culled.
Rebels CEO Baden Stephenson absolutely rejects the thesis that Melbourne have been done any favours and insists his books are there to be seen. And, of course, they are investigated, by Rugby Australia itself. The problem is that if anyone is caught deliberately breaking the salary cap, the fine is $250,000 — and that would be enough to send just about every Australian franchise to the wall. It’s a toothless tiger, as a result.
So, let’s have a one-time only amnesty and send in some independent investigators to clear up the matter once and for all. And then let’s keep the independent auditors on a permanent basis.
Now, more than ever, the game must become utterly transparent. Surely Rugby Australia realises by now it is under the most intense scrutiny ever applied to an Australian sporting organisation. The big things will play out regardless. But it could be the small things that prove fatal.