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Sabbatical, it has a lovely ring to it. A promise of leisure and relaxation. Your mouth even feels refreshed for having said it.
But in its use by the ARU in discussing player contract conditions, its actual meaning has become muddled.
Literally it relates to the Sabbath and means a period of rest after an extended period of work. The ARU has made promises of star players taking a one-year sabbatical while retaining their Wallaby eligibility and returning to the fold richer, relaxed and refreshed for doing the hard yards in the green and gold.
But will it really work out that way?
With Racing Metro’s reported offer of one million euros per season for Matt Giteau, many current Wallabies may just be looking to include a sabbatical in coming contract negotiations, and who could blame them?
But how would it work in practice? Players may come back somewhat richer, but refreshed and relaxed?
Super Rugby runs February to July/August. Top 14 in France is August to May/June. Japan’s Top League is August to February.
Potential Wallaby fixtures are:
Inbound Tour – June
Rugby Championship – August to October
Spring Tour – November
Now lets look at some hypotheticals. If you were one of the lucky ‘must keep happys’ we will assume you are a genuine star and a first XV autopick. What would a year in Top 14 mean for you?
Well, if the reality of playing for both a Top 14 club and fulfilling Wallaby duty were to actually happen, you’d receive a lot of extra travel and a much reduced whack of Euros. You would be missing 4 months of the French 10-month season.
Assuming you were in the ‘megabucks’ salary range, that would see your one million euro contract pro-rata’d to 600,000 – or about a million dollars. The money you made on your Wallaby gig offsets most of what you lost from the Top 14 one.
Still, good money if you can get it.
You play out the French season, miss the end of the Super Rugby and are back on deck for the Rugby Championship. You have pocketed perhaps $800,000 extra and hopefully haven’t developed a taste for life in the South of France.
But, you have now played a full Super Rugby season, 15 Internationals and 24 games of Top 14 without any meaningful time off and are now looking at a further 12 Internationals!
If you took the year off from Wallaby duty, the workload is still the same as you would have played the full Top 14 season, so Wallaby eligibility is moot in that case as it would be if you needed a rest and sat out the upcoming RC and Spring Tour.
How about you do a Badger and head to the Land of the Rising Sun? Wallaby duty would take up most of the Japanese season so you are going to sit out the Wallabies altogether, eligibility again moot.
The Japanese season is shorter and less strenuous and you wrap it up just in time for the next super Rugby Season. If we ignore the inbound tour, by the time the Rugby Championship comes along, you have done a George Smith and played yourself into eligibility under current rules.
You come home $600,000-700,000 richer, but are looking at a third domestic season and the following internationals without having had a break of any sort. You could sit out the coming Super season, but the loss of that income would cut into your hard earned yen significantly, making the whole exercise a fruitless endeavour.
So in both cases the player comes back somewhat richer after having played himself into the ground. Any bonus of being eligible for Wallaby selection comes with the burden of potential burnout and or injury.
Relaxed and refreshed? I think not, but maybe with a new found hankering for le mode de vie français.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.