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SPIRO: Good luck to Benji going back to NRL - he'll need it!

21st April, 2014
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Benji Marshall at the Tigers wasn't as long ago as it feels. (AAP Image/Action Photographics, Renee McKay)
Expert
21st April, 2014
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First of all, a confession. I was positive about Benji Marshall’s chances of making a good late career in rugby. There was a possibility, I believed, that he could be an interesting inside centre or fullback.

I was doubtful about him in the number 10 position. There was a possibility, too, that he could get a position in the All Blacks sevens team to play in Rio.

But to be frank, I was surprised and alarmed for his future when he made a cameo appearance for the Auckland Blues in a trial match in Sydney. He looked somewhat pudgy rather than the lean, trim Benji of his glory days.

The most alarming aspect of his play, though, was the lack of fluidity, with none of those electric, long-striding break-outs finished off with the improvised brilliance of a round-the-back pass to a runner bursting towards the try line. The thing that struck me was how static his play was. He took the ball standing still and, without moving forward, tended to jerk a pass to a runner.

That was before the Super Rugby season started. In his last cameo appearance for the Blues against the Hurricanes nothing had changed. His game was still flat-footed and stilted.

It was clear he was in deep water and going under. It was no surprise that Sir John Kirwan decided that his star recruit needed time, and plenty of it, actually playing rugby rather than practicing it.

So down to the development team for the rest of the Super Rugby season and then the ITM provincial tournament was Kirwan’s answer to Benji’s problem.

You have to congratulate Benji for refusing to accept this panacea. He knew that at the age of 28 it was too late to serve an apprenticeship in a new code. It took courage to walk away from a lucrative contract, and the ancillary lucrative radio contract his wife had signed onto.

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There was a sad truth to his statement: “I’m an average rugby player.”

He can also expect the barbs from many journalists who cover rugby league. They tend to be personally affronted when someone suggests that the ‘greatest game of all’ might not be the code of choice for all talented players or sports lovers.

Rugby players who crossed to league were called ‘converts.’ They were invariably pestered to concede that the code they had changed to was a much better game than the one they had left.

League players who went to rugby were called ‘traitors.’ They were continually pestered to concede that the code now paying their wages was nowhere near as good or open or exciting or generous (take your choice) as the one they had left behind.

Who knows what is going to happen for Benji now. Some weeks ago I reported in The Roar that Benji was not making the cut at the Blues and was looking at playing rugby league in the UK. If he does not get a gig in the NRL, with June 30 the closing date, then the UK could still be on the cards.

His poor form as a rugby player has closed off the European rugby market, but there is still Japan. There was talk several years ago of Benji playing rugby in Japan while he was still with the Wests Tigers.

I think it would have been a smart move if Benji had played in Japan last year before moving across to the Blues. He needed time on the field to get a feel for rugby in matches rather than endless hours working on drills on the practice field.

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I also believe that he might have done better if he’d somehow signed with the Crusaders rather than the Blues. The Crusaders turned Sonny Bill Williams into a viable and potentially great rugby player.

Alternatively, Sir John Kirwan could have handed Benji over to Graham Henry, a member of the Blues coaching staff, to make Benji’s development as a rugby player of stature into a special project. You have to say that Michael Cheika did a much better job turning Israel Folau’s playing skills into the finished rugby product.

There are no winners from this story. The Blues have been distracted in Super Rugby 2014 by investing a huge amount of time in a player who, for reasons that are obvious now but not so obvious in the early days, has not delivered the attacking panache expected of him.

The player himself is virtually unemployable in the NRL, unless he takes a massive pay cut.

What are the lessons for the fiasco? There is the hubris on the part of the player and the franchise that embraced him so extravagantly. But the main lesson is this. Rugby and league are very different games. Just because you are a star in one, you cannot expect to be a star in the other.

This works both ways. As the Bible says: Many are called and few are chosen. Benjamin Quentin Marshall was a chosen one for a long time in league, but not even for a short time in rugby.

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