The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

Semi-traitor: Capping Radradra's income means we have to cop it sweet

30th June, 2016
Advertisement
Semi Radradra is a human headline, but he still does his best work on the field. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins)
Expert
30th June, 2016
76
2388 Reads

There was a time not that long ago when rugby league would pick the eyes out of rugby union’s amateur talent base.

The professional game mercilessly made off with Wallabies Michael O’Connor, Ray Price, Brett Papworth and Russell Fairfax. There was a host of others. You could go back to Rex Mossop, Michael Cleary, Kevin Ryan. Hell, go back to Dally Messenger.

Across the Tasman the All Blacks were gutted when Matthew Ridge, John Timu, Frano Botica, John Gallagher, John Schuster and Va’aiga ‘Inga the Winger’ Tuigamala crossed the Great Rubicon.

In Wales there was lamentation as Jonathan Davies joined Widnes. Cronulla Sharks lured Springboks No.8 Tiaan Strauss. Ricky Stuart joined the Raiders after a Wallabies tour of Argentina, Wally Lewis was an Australian schoolboy on a famous UK tour in 1977, and Scott Gourley was playing against the British and Irish Lions one year, the Gold Coast Seagulls the next.

More:
» Trust me, Semi is definitely (maybe) coming back
» Assault accusations levelled at Radradra
» ‘Club in crisis’ doesn’t go close to describing Parramatta

But since rugby union cast off its ‘shamateur’ dream-coat and declared itself professional in 1995 – ironically to stem a potential tide being lured away by Rupert Murdoch’s Super League – rugby league players have been largely flowing the other way.

And just as it did for the leather-patch brigade of the 1980s and early ’90s, it’s caused no small amount of angst in the greatest game of all, rugby league.

The latest to get teeth gnashing is, of course, the erstwhile Fijian flier Semi Radradra. The NRL’s number one wingman has been enticed by French rugby mob Union Bordeaux Bègles for coin so good that Semi’s brushed Sydney.

Advertisement

And now he’s in Nadi trying to get his much-jumbled ducks in a row, with an AVO on him that, whatever his guilt or innocence, will stick like so much mud. The Semi saga will play out in due course.

Is rugby league really surprised that a player like Radradra would forsake the game and take bigger money to do something else? When Andrew Fifita stated the blazing obvious to Matt Logue in The Daily Telegraph, that should someone offer him phone-number money to swap codes, he would of course take it and run.

People labelled Fifita a mercenary, even treasonous. Rugby types would say the same thing of O’Connor and Papworth. But if you’re offered twice the money to go somewhere else, doesn’t matter what the job, chances are you’re gone.

The 13-man game, by dint of its limited global appeal, has a ceiling on how much players can earn dictated by a ‘cap’ on salaries, and the ability to churn out super-fit, fast athletes, purpose-built for combative footy codes, so is always going to be attractive to rich rugby people – of which there are lots.

And it’s not like it hasn’t happened before. Sonny Bill Williams did it. Anthony Mundine did it. Jarryd Hayne did it. You could make a very respectable, Origin-strength super squad for leaguies who’ve had a crack at Rah-Rah. Check ‘em out:

Mark Gasnier, Timana Tahu, Wendell Sailor, Lote Tuqiri, Sam Burgess, Karmichael Hunt, Israel Folau, Ben Te’o, Mat Rogers, Willie Carne, Jason Robinson, Craig Wing, Nathan Blacklock, Iestyn Harris, Andy Farrell, Peter Ryan, Ryan Cross, Barrie-Jon Mather, Craig Gower, Reece Robinson, Matt Duffie.

Brad Thorne and Andrew Walker went back and forth. And our Hayne Plane could do something similar yet. Who knows?

Advertisement

Surely not Jarryd! And here we are.

Meanwhile, in Nadi, Semi Trailer Radradra is in limbo, purgatory and potential disgrace all at once. A few years ago he was a kid in a village playing shoeless touch footy. Now he’s a cash cow, an asset, a player and play-thing on the global sports stage.

And he won’t be the last. For however long rugby league places a limit on how much it pays its superstars – and those stars figure they can get more somewhere else – they’ll go. That’s market forces, human nature, Mabo, the vibe, what have you.

And rugby league, at least on mahogany row, appears okay with that.

Well, it’s not okay with it. But the game has come to the realisation that it has to cop players leaving for other codes. That’s just the fiscal reality. And Semi will be waved on and forgotten. And rugby league will continue on, and churn out another superstar it won’t be able to keep.

Only the eighth Immortal, Andrew Johns, was deemed too big to fail. When he flirted with NSW Waratahs, rugby league bent itself over to keep him. Channel Nine gave him a job, probably forever, like Kerry Packer gave Tony Greig. I’ll look after you, son. Because if the Holy Joseph had gone to union, well, rugby league would have eaten its very soul.

What can the game do to halt the flow of stars now and into the future? Does the game just have to cop it sweet? Does the game – you there, dear reader, the fan in the street – just have to acknowledge that in order to keep the competition even there must be a salary cap that drives away certain players? Is it just a business reality that you, the people, must say goodbye to a superstar each year?

Advertisement

Is there not another way?

The salary cap is responsible for evening up the National Rugby League. It’s almost socialist in that aspect. Every club gets an equal chunk of cash from the NRL via a broadcasting agreement. And players move around clubs, which evens up the comp. Only Queensland’s Origin team isn’t subject to a cap, and they’ve had a longer dynasty than Dynasty.

So the cap works, if you like that sort of thing.

But it is also responsible for Semi and Sonny Billy, and all the rest who’ve worked out that their value on the open market far exceeds what little rugby league can pay them. Of course, all clubs aren’t equal anyway. Clubs take money from gates, sponsorship, licensed clubs (poker machines) and wherever they can get it. And Brisbane Broncos have many more fans, sponsors and ‘third party agreements’ – extra chunks of cash for good players – than Newcastle Knights. And that’s just it.

People point to the English Premier League, which once had a guaranteed First Four of Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea. And in defence of the salary cap people asked, is that what we want? And the answer might be, well, maybe we do.

Because eventually, market forces triumph. Manchester City found a super-rich Sheikh. Tottenham Hotspur finished third in 2015-16. Southampton finished sixth. West Ham were seventh, Stoke City ninth. And of course Leicester bloody City kiboshed normal by somehow winning the whole blinking thing.

(And Iceland beat England in the European Cup, which has nothing to do with the salary cap but highlights the glorious uncertainties of sport and is quite pleasing at the same time.)

Advertisement

So, brush or raise the salary cap? Do away with third parties or make them open slather for all? Institute a player draft? Find a Russian bloody billionaire who wants somewhere to park his money? A combination of all that? Do they speak English in What?

What’s certain is this: the NRL produces superstar athletes. But its limited global appeal means the game isn’t big enough to hold them. And while there’s a limit on earnings, and rugby union has so much greater reach and money and opportunities, there will always be a Semi Radradra fleeing the code for greener green.

You needn’t cop it sweet.

But you best get used to it.

close