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Kurtley Beale is back in the Wallabies fold, the IRB has changed its name and Ireland have deposed Australia as third-best in the world. These are some of the big topics in this week’s rolling maul.
1. Can Michael Cheika create a Wallaby real Beale?
It is no secret in rugby circles that the ARU’s chief executive Bill Pulver and the board, headed by silent Michael Hawker, desperately wanted Kurtley Beale out of the Wallabies and the Waratahs.
Whether he was to go to rugby league or whatever other rugby-playing country that would give him a contract, they wanted him gone.
The lewd message he texted to Di Patston and a second and far more offensive text he was alleged to have sent her were deemed to be hanging offences. There was, too, Beale’s past history of obnoxious behaviour which included belting a teammate at the Melbourne Rebels.
A disciplinary review was set up to resolve Beale’s future. The intention of the ARU was that Beale had no future in Australian rugby.
But the review found Beale guilty of the first text and not proven regarding the second texts. He was fined $45,000 and the matter was deemed closed.
Negotiations for an extension of Beale’s contract with the ARU, probably for 2015 only, were commenced by Pulver.
Now, while these negotiations are still going on, Beale has been summoned to Europe by coach Michael Cheika to join the Wallabies.
What does this mean?
It is the clearest signal that Cheika can give the ARU that he wants them to sign a contract with Beale that makes him available for the Wallabies during 2015, a Rugby World Cup year.
Second, it is Cheika’s way of telling Pulver and the ARU board that he is his own man when it comes to running the Wallabies. They can run Australian rugby, but he is going to run the Wallabies. If there is a player available he wants who the ARU actually wants out of Australian rugby, then he is going to pick that player.
Third, the reason why Cheika wants Beale is that he believes he adds an x-factor to the game plan of running the ball that was obviously not there when the Wallabies played France.
Admittedly, Quade Cooper added a spark when he came on, especially with his passing game. But Beale, in his best form, offers passing, kick chase and regather, together with some strident running to the Wallabies attack.
The other notable aspect of Beale’s return to the Wallabies is the way the players have all supported him coming back into the team, even Cooper who showed splendid team-spirit in assuring Beale and Wallaby supporters that the players had this back.
This support from the players is significant because during the height of the controversy over Beale’s unacceptable conduct with Patston, the ARU leaked to the media that Michael Hooper, the Wallabies captain and adamantine Beale supporter, needed counselling for the stance he had taken on the matter.
So the Beale matter has created a split between the Wallabies and their coach with the ARU.
Despite its objections to Beale’s behaviour over the years, the ARU really has no option but to give him a contract that covers playing for the Wallabies.
For his part, Beale has to deliver off the field. Any further indiscretion will result in calls for a final expulsion, which are unlikely to be opposed.
Beale has to deliver, too, on the field. Cheika has invested a lot of his own credibility as a coach in reclaiming Beale for the Wallabies. The only way Beale can repay this faith is to do for the Wallabies, when he gets his chance, what he did for the Waratahs. And that was to be a match-winner.
2. The IRB has become ‘World Rugby’. What does this mean?
The surest indication that an organisation is losing the plot about its core responsibilities and what to do to enhance them is when they start changing their name and their logo.
This sort of PR-driven change is invariably costly and results in higher salaries and more administrators, along with a diminished output of real work and real answers to whatever problems are facing the organisation.
This is a cynical approach, admittedly. But I have seen this sort of re-branding happen to all sorts of organisations, from political parties to sporting institutions. And I can’t think of any successes over the long haul from rebranding.
So on Wednesday around 4.43 am I received an emailed media release headed: IRB Becomes World Rugby as New Brand is Launched.
“At the heart of the brand,” the media release drooled, “is a distinctive positioning, expressed visually through a modernised and progressive logo that embodies World Rugby’s mission statement to grow the game globally, retaining a link to the organisation’s heritage through it’s blue and green colour scheme.”
Oh dear! Someone described the logo as a watermelon that had been smashed by a machete.
The old IRB lifted playing numbers in the last four years from 2 million to 6.6 million players. It set up – or was reluctantly forced into it from the ARU and New Zealand Rugby Union – the Rugby World Cup tournament, which is the biggest international sporting event each year it takes place. And it got rugby back into the Olympics after 90 or so years of being on the outer.
Now here is a test for World rugby. Resolve the dispute that is currently simmering between Samoa’s players and the Samoan Rugby Union.
The players have brought forward a catalogue of mismanagement and lack of financial transparency concerning their union. They threatened not to play England this weekend at Twickenham unless the IRB/World Rugby sorted out their dispute.
Ben Coles in PlanetRugby says unequivocally: “The evidence against the Samoan Rugby Union is overwhelming while the rest of the rugby world should be horrified that in 2014 Samoa players are still expected to pay their air fares.”
There are reports that World Rugby threatened Samoa with exclusion from the Rugby World Cup 2015 tournament and the cancellation of the All Blacks visit to Samoa next year unless the players called off their strike threat.
Bernard Lapasset, the World Rugby president, says “there is no solution at the moment.”
World Rugby chief executive Brett Gosper was asked recently if his organisation needed to look closely at how the Samoan Rugby Union used World Rugby funds. His reply was totally unsatisfactory. There were stringent criteria already in place, he replied. And what investigations were being made? Well, he said, “we won’t rule out further investigations.”
Where is the promised dynamism being generated by the new name and logo?
Samoa has twice been a Rugby World Cup quarter-finalist. It has the potential to be a top tier rugby nation, with victories over Australia, Wales and Scotland.
Is World Rugby aware, too, that a Samoan rugby league side performed very well in the recent rugby league Four Nations tournament?
More leadership in resolving real rugby issues and less of an obsession about logos and image-building seems to be the instruction that World Rugby officials need to heed. Action not words is the required order of the day.
But will we see this?
3. Ireland faces the test to justify its No. 3 ranking
Around this time last year, Ireland almost beat the All Blacks. This would have been their first ever win against the New Zealanders. The home side was thwarted by a try after 80 minutes of play was up that featured over 20 phases and went down the field from well inside the New Zealand half of the field – about 70 metres in total.
Then earlier this year Ireland won the Six Nations tournament. Two weeks ago, Ireland defeated the Springboks quite comprehensively.
The reward for these results is that Ireland is ahead of Australia on the IRB/World Rugby rankings for the first time in eight years.
Currently these rankings are: 1 New Zealand (1 previously), 2. South Africa (2), 3. Ireland (5), 4. Australia (3), 5. England (4), 6. France (6).
The Ireland-Australia Test at Dublin at the weekend will provide a marker to just how powerful Ireland has become.
A victory will entrench the belief that Ireland will be a contender in the 2015 Rugby World Cup tournament.
A loss to the Wallabies will dampen the optimism that is rising in Irish rugby hearts.
Alternatively, Michael Cheika’s Wallabies need a victory to restore some credibility into the Wallabies after a year of too many losses and a dramatic change of coaches.
Both teams have ‘everything to play for,’ as the old saying goes.