Michael Foley slams ARU for freeing Honey Badger

[WFDom]

Good on ya Foles

Michael Foley slams ARU for freeing Honey Badger

Western Force coach Michael Foley says Australian rugby has been "caught with its pants down" in letting Nick "Honey Badger" Cummins leave for Japan.
Cummins chose not to speak to the media after his farewell game for the Force against the Brumbies in Canberra on Friday night.
Instead it was his soon to be ex-teammates he was most concerned about, advising he was off for a "few drinks with the boys" whilst leaving the dressing sheds with a slab of Crownies on his shoulder.

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/un...712-zt58t.html

[valzc]

Well said Foles! Bad boy JOC is granted all sorts of leeway and if it had been Folau the ARU would be turning themselves inside out to give him whatever he wanted! Nick's done more for the face of Rugby singlehanded without any of the Hooha. The ARU needs to get their heads out of their arses. Hopefully it won't be his ex-teammates for long cos he has to be back next year when the Force win the championship!

[Marty_Mcfly]

You have a great point valzc.

When you look at return on investment, you would have to think cummins offers so much more than falou. He might not be so well rounded on field, but what he offers in terms of character and charisma leaves izzy for dead. And I think that is critical for enticing new fans to the game.

I have shown a number of non rugby fans clips of cummins this year (including a few here in the UK), and they have all had a good laugh and enjoyed it. I have not shown anyone anything izzy related, and to be honest I don't think they would be that interested anyway..

Has the ARU made a mistake by focussing all their eggs in the izzy falou basket, at the expense of players like cummins??

[Alison]

The ARU is only interested in making NSW the heartland. Some say it's because that's the biggest market and it's currently being overshadowed by NRL and AFL. Others say it's because the ARU and NSW are both feeding out of the same trough and have no interest in the game outside the NSW border!

[Tonkar]

You have a great point valzc.

Has the ARU made a mistake by focussing all their eggs in the izzy falou basket, at the expense of players like cummins??

You got it so right Marty and the ARU have done it all to get the warratahds into a final with a chance to win... Thats why they are broke (cashless) They did it for the 2011 world cup with Timana Tahu and he was a big lose for the Wallabies and played 5 games... ARU needs to concentrate on letting the Super clubs manage the player lists and there finances and just do Admin and the game would be so much better... When you try to buy a result 99% of the time it wont work...


The Honey Badger is worth more to Aussie rugby than any player in the comp today with putting Australian rugby on the Map... Cant wait to see all the blonde wigs at Coca Cola wests Games in Japan then you will see how big his following will really be

[shasta]

He has done more for our team's profile than any outher player since 2006. Just by being himself really, with a little help from the actual honey badger yarn. Being able to walk the talk helps too. They need to follow up on Foley's hopes and pull all stops to get him back. Surely there is a WA third party who'd want him as a representative.

[Macattack]

Remember to buy an extra Lotto ticket each time it jackpots.......you never know what you might be able to achieve

[wholetruth]

Here it is again from The West. Waiting to see if the ARU reply. Might be waiting a while!

Force slam ARU over Cummins
The Western Force dream of an historic first Super Rugby finals appearance came to a shuddering halt with a 47-25 loss to the Brumbies last night.

They fell at the last hurdle and while disappointment was obvious, the rejuvenated Force can be proud of their remarkable record-breaking season.

But immediately after the loss, Force coach Michael Foley gave the Australian Rugby Union a blast over their handling of winger Nick Cummins' departure and the way they let him slip through their fingers to play in Japan.

Cummins has cited family reasons for leaving, the chance to earn money to help support two siblings who have cystic fibrosis and his father who has been diagnosed with incurable cancer.

"Australian rugby, in my opinion, got caught with its pants down letting him go to Japan," Foley said.

"It's something we've got to think really hard about at a time when we are talking about the commercial chall- enges of the game and we let a player like that go.

"I don't just mean an international player but a player with that profile and that appeal across demographics that very few other players touch.

"As a coach I'd really love him to come back and I'm encouraging Mark Sinderberry our chief executive to make it happen."

Foley said last night's loss was disappointing but he was proud the way his side battled to the end and scored three second-half tries.

Too many missed tackles by the Force and the display in the second 20 minutes hurt them.

"Early on we didn't defend well enough. We let them get out too far in the first half," Foley said. "We missed some one-on-one tackles and that made the difference.

"When the score got right out there it is easy to get disappointed. We were still fighting … disappointed tonight, but still very proud of the boys."

The introduction of experienced scrum-half Alby Mathewson in the second period added much-needed spark, but he could not lift the Force to a fairytale finish despite tries to Pek Cowan, Chris Tuatara-Morrison and Zack Holmes.

[Alison]

So I see Beale is considering a move back to the NRL (again). Will be interesting to see how this plays out in comparison to what the ARU did (or didn't do) in Nick's case. I'd bet my house on the fact that money would be found from somewhere to keep him. Maybe an increase in ground hire fees may be required.

http://www.espnscrum.com/australia/r...ce=twitterfeed

[shasta]

Beale is a certainty to have a crack at RL at some stage. He's a Mungo and the prospect of testing himself in Origin will be irresistable. It's just a matter of when.
But he can't go "back" to the NRL Ali. He came straight from Blacktown to Joey's at about 15yo.

[jargan83]

Straight swap

Kurtley Beale for Dave Taylor

[GIGS20]

So I see Beale is considering a move back to the NRL (again). Will be interesting to see how this plays out in comparison to what the ARU did (or didn't do) in Nick's case. I'd bet my house on the fact that money would be found from somewhere to keep him. Maybe an increase in ground hire fees may be required.

http://www.espnscrum.com/australia/r...ce=twitterfeed

The ARU will throw several banks at him to keep him at the tahs, then counter any complaints re KBomb or Honey Badger with the fact that its completely different, Kurtley was never looking overseas!

[hertryk]

I received this email this morning from the ARU....

Dear Jo,

My colleague Tony Harris has forwarded your response regarding Nick Cummins and as player contracting falls under my area of responsibility, I wanted to respond on behalf of the ARU.

Like you and other Western Force fans, we were very disappointed to hear of Nick Cummins’ plans to move to Japan, as he’s been a terrific performer on the field for both the Western Force and the Wallabies, as well as being a character who has really connected with our fans.

I take on board your comments that we didn’t do enough to retain Nick in Australian Rugby, but the issue of player contracting is a complex one, and having seen all of the information on this particular issue, I’m confident we did everything we could in the timeframe that was available to us to retain Nick.

I’m not in a position to go into specific details, but Nick’s circumstances are quite different to any other circumstances in Australian Rugby and we do hope that he will return to Australian Rugby at some stage in the future.

Best regards,

Rich Hawkins


Richard Hawkins | General Counsel | Australian Rugby Union Ltd
ARU Headquarters | Ground Floor, 29-57 Christie St, St Leonards NSW 2065 (PO Box 115, ST LEONARDS NSW 1590)
T +61 2 8005 5658 | M +61 420 428 412 | F +61 2 8005 5677 | W www.rugby.com.au

[Alison]

Wonder what the 'timeframe' was...

[The InnFORCEr]

I don't think you all get it. The money is one things that Nicks needs, but the money is no good on it's own, time is what is really of the essence for Nick and his family, and remaining contracted to the ARU may have got him the money or close to it, but not the time.

I actually believe the ARU did their best as Mr Hawkins said in his response.