How John O’Neill could rescue Australian rugby

 
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By kingplaymaker, 11 Nov 2009 kingplaymaker is a Roar Rookie

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Australian rugby, despite a cheering victory last weekend, is in dire condition with falling popularity at both international and Super levels and a national team seemingly unable to defeat teams above them in the world rankings.

The ARU, instead of taking decisive action to turn this situation around, is strikingly inert, proposing a longer Super season and another team as magical solutions.

Gone are the early days of the decade, when John O’Neill recognised that as the underdog in the sporting marketplace rubgy union had to be active, dynamic, bold and aggressive in order to challenge competitors.

Now the idea seems to be to wait around doing nothing, with the excuse of the economic crisis.

Here’s a three point strategy to reverse the game’s fortunes, to improve the finances of the ARU, to improve the popularity of the game, and to make the national team better.

1) Negotiate for two instead of one Super 14 teams. To launch large projects, money is needed and an extra Super team is a great source of broadcasting revenue. Moreover, it has obvious advantages in terms of spreading rugby’s popularity and increasing playing numbers.

The refusal of South Africa to accept the Melbourne Super team instead of their own candidate is a golden opportunity to be exploited: why not suggest that South Africa can have their extra team (to play in their own conference), as long as Australia can have two more?

South Africa, knowing that a decision made by arbitration would result in their losing the Southern Kings, would readily agree to it.

What would it matter to them?

It would also not concern New Zealand, so long as they were also offered an extra team, to create as and when they wanted, which may not be now, of course.

This kind of bold negotiating is exactly what O’Neill should be best at.

The counter-argument to a second Super team in Australia is that the game isn’t strong enough to support it, but this is based on the assumption that all the players in the two teams would be Australian which of course they wouldn’t.

As foreign players would be allowed it would be easy to create two high quality sides, while the advantages of having two more teams are so great it would not matter of who they comprised.

The money resulting from the extra team, money being the thing Australian rugby so badly needs, would help in the next two stages of the plan.

2) A national competition. As this has been discussed endlessly, I will try to provide some different arguments for it.

The economic advantages have not been noticed, because of the initial costs in the first year. Granted, last time a large loss was made, but the competition was not conceived economically and this time O’Neill has said it would be ‘run on the smell of an oily rag.’.

Firstly, club rugby is much more stable in popularity than international rugby, as it relies much less on a particular team winning, and this is why the game is consistently popular in England even while the national team are being ritually pummeled.

Put simply, in an internal competition, it’s impossible for Australia to lose.

This financial stability and stability in the sport’s popularity is a firm economic base to offset the more volatile international level. Such financial stability allows the ARU to take risks and make investments.

Secondly, an international competition does much of the work of grassroots development, and this has profound economic implications.

Why pour huge sums into youth development as the ARU is currently doing, when the clubs in a national competition can do much of the work themselves?

As in Europe, each club can be a centre for young players in the respective areas and can run extensive youth programmes searching far and wide for young players, bringing them eventually through age group sides to the first team. The young players themselves can go to watch the local team and visualize a clear path through club rugby to Super rugby and national rugby.

This a is far more effective and less expensive way of developing grass-roots talent.

3) Strengthening the Wallabies. The Wallabies do not have enough world-class players at the moment to regularly defeat New Zealand and South Africa.

The reason they fade towards the end of games is not lack of toughness or motivation, but because the overall superiority of having 15 instead of 11 excellent players gradually asserts itself and the Wallabies are overwhelmed as a result.

It was noticeable how the addition of Will Genia, Wycliff Palu and Digby Ioane made a dramatic improvement in the team recently: this is what happens when three excellent players replace three average players.

However, Australia still remain four players short. So around this number of new players need to be brought in, principally in the second row and the outside backs.

There are three ways to source these players, depending on the amount of money available.

Option 1: Import Dan Vickerman and retain Hugh Mcmeniman by offering them more money to improve the second row, and import Mark Gasnier to improve the outside backs, not least by allowing Digby Ioane to return to the wing and so fit in an extra high quality player in the backline.

Option 2: Vickerman, Mcmeniman, Gasnier, plus two Rugby league outside backs such as Israel Folau and Jarryd Hayne to provide more strike power than say, Drew Mitchell and Lachie Turner. This would cost more.

Option 3: Vickerman, Mcmeniman, plus Israel Folau, Jarryd Hayne, Greg Inglis and Karmichael Hunt.

The three options go in ascending order of cost and this one is the most luxurious, especially as it involves buying out contracts.

Option 1 will provide the Wallabies with a team which can compete with New Zealand and South Africa, by plugging the gaps in high-class talent that are currently hampering them.

However, it’s perhaps worth reflecting that there is a difference between a player like Berrick Barnes, an excellent international performer, and a true game-breaker like Tana Umaga or Dan Carter.

The Australian backline currently contains average players (Lachie Turner and Drew Mitchell), excellent players (Berrick Barnes and Digby Ioane), but does it really contain any astonishing, game-breaking players?

15 excellent players may allow the team to beat South Africa and New Zealand sometimes and perhaps pull a fast one at the world cup, but will it allow them to be the best, dominant team in the world?

There exist in Australian rugby league today four young players possessed with this magical game-breaking quality: Inglis, Folau, Hayne and Hunt, who are all young enough to learn the game more successfully than old converts like Sailor and Rogers.

On top of an excellent pack as it would be with Vickerman and Mcmeniman, a wonderful group of inside backs (Giteau, Barnes, Cooper, O’Connor, Beale), a superb coach, four astounding players like this could make Australia the dominant side in the world. It would cost a lot, but it might be worth it.

So the idea should be to increase the amount of money available to Australian rugby, to increase the number of Super teams and club teams available to spectators and grass-roots development and hence guarantee the game’s future, and to strengthen the national team.

If John O’Neill is bold and has the ARU’s support, he could accomplish all of that.

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