3
More rumour and gossip heard over ales and ciders at The Stoned Crow on Willoughby Road.
Don't yet know what the new favourite watering holes near Moore Park are.
- The NSWRU is unhappy about what it sees as the unfair way in which players from the former Force playing list are being reallocated to the four surviving SR franchises. The NSW franchise is complaining about the present model in which Melbourne apparently has first dibs on the former Force playing list and the other three franchises will get to pick over what's left after Melbourne finishes its negotiations.
- The salary cap problem has not been resolved.
- The ARU and the NSWRU really have been surprised/shocked by the degree of resentment and hostility coming out of WA in response to the culling of the Force.
- The Senate Enquiry came out of left-field. No-one in the ARU, NSWRU etc anticipated that culling the Force would trigger something like that.
- The present relationship between the ARU and the WA Government is best described as toxic. It is believed that the WA Government has made it clear there will be no money available after 2019 to subsidise Rugby Union test matches in Perth.
- There is a theory that declining attendances at Wallabies Tests in Perth are linked to the poor on-field performance of the Force and that with the Force gone, Perth will be "starved" of professional rugby content in years to come and that could result in an increase in attendances at any future Wallabies tests in Perth.
- Now that WA is out of the mix as a host of Wallabies Tests (where many matches in Perth were against South Africa) and given that NSW automatically gets a Bledisloe Test in Sydney each year and QLD automatically gets a Bledisloe Test in Brisbane in alternate years, QRU believes that it is entitled to get a Wallabies vs South Africa Test in the other years; that is, the South Africa Tests which were being played in Perth should not go automatically to Melbourne. The VRU has a different point of view.
- From the Bean-counters:
- The cull of the Force will result in a reduction of operating costs in 2018, but it will also reduce gross revenue in 2018. In 2017, there was significant revenue from Force memberships, match-day attendances and hospitality at nib, jersey sponsorships, Road Safety sponsorship, Force merchandise etc. The Beanies think it is fair to assume that Force memberships and match-day attendances at nib would have grown in 2018 as a consequence of the improved performance of the Force in 2017. So the Beanies wanted the ARU to try to retain a portion of that 2017 revenue in 2018, for example by negotiating with Western Force sponsors from 2017 for a continuation of those sponsorships with the other SR franchises in 2018 and/or by providing payable Rugby content in WA in 2018 - hence the comment in the ARU media statement of 5 September "ARU is also in active discussions with its State and Territory Member Unions about opportunities to provide Rugby content in Western Australia from the 2018 season."
- As far as the Bean-counters are concerned, the "new" 8 year deal with Victoria is only a roll-over of the deals from the previous 8 years - it is not new revenue per se.
- There will be a revenue short-fall caused by the withdrawal of WA financial support for Wallabies test matches in Perth after 2019. The ARU will no longer be able to play the Victorian and WA Governments off against one another in order to maximise the amounts of money put in by each state government. It is not clear who can step into the hole created by the withdrawal of the WA money - Canberra, Newcastle and the Gold Coast are unlikely to cough up the sorts of money which the WA Government was handing over to the ARU.
The above is rumour, gossip and hearsay.