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Rugby league’s much-vaunted, but still unresolved, Independent Commission could end up being a boon for rugby. While the Queensland Rugby League and News Limited continually challenge NSW with petty jealousies, the Commission stays in the back-water.
It’s fast becoming an embarrassment for the 13-man code.
The sticking point? The make-up of the eight-man Commission. Three contenders doesn’t go equally into eight.
Territorial power-play.
It’s generally accepted current NRL CEO David Gallop will be the Commission’s CEO. And so he should, he’s the best man by far. So it’s up to the NSWRL, QRL, News Limited, and the 16 NRL club chairmen to solve the eight-man impasse.
The Commission was scheduled to be operative late last year, then April, and here it is late May and the final decision is still a binocular distance away.
Meanwhile, rugby is going ahead in leaps and bounds, leading into the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand during September and October – with a level of international competition league can never ever aspire to and the RWC being the third biggest sporting event in the world every four years behind the summer Olympic Games and the Soccer World Cup.
And while league dithers, rugby is shoring up its stars.
Yesterday, quicksilver Queenslander Quade Cooper re-signed with both the ARU and his state until the end of 2012.
Just a year?
The reason is quite obvious. He wants to team up with his good mate Sonny Bill Williams in 2013 to play league for the New Zealand Warriors.
They would make a devastating combination with their attacking flair, lifting the New Zealand Test side many rungs up the performance ladder, with Benji Marshall operating inside them.
But the extra year with the ARU also gives Cooper breathing space to see what happens with the Independent Commission that’s supposedly to be in place to settle the new television rights due later his year, which “promises” to raise the salary cap.
If the Commission stuffs up, Cooper is perfectly positioned sitting on the fence to stay with rugby and settle for the big bucks overseas or stick to his preference and switch to league with Sonny Bill.
League’s in a mess, but rugby’s laughing.
Cooper’s the 19th Wallaby to re-sign with the ARU to continue after the World Cup:
* Reds – James Horwill, Ben Daley, and Cooper.
* Waratahs – Adam Ashley-Cooper, Berrick Barnes, Rob Horne, Drew Mitchell, Dean Mumm, Wycliff Palu, Tatafu Polota-Nau, and Lachie Turner.
* Force – Pek Cowan, Matt Hodgson, Ben McCalman, David Pocock, and Nathan Sharpe.
* Brumbies – Ben Alexander, and Stephen Moore.
* And Rebels – Kurtley Beale.
With Matt Giteau heading for Toulon, and Mark Chisholm for Bayonne, that only leaves Rocky Elsom and James O’Connor, of the elite Wallabies, uncommitted.
Elsom looks likely to return to Leinster, where he has already made his mark as the strike-player to win the 2009 Heineken Cup, while the Force’s O’Connor is almost certain to sign with the Reds, his home state, now that Quade Cooper has re-signed.
Across the board, a bright future awaits the Wallabies. And so it should, there’s a lot of unfinished business.
The men in gold haven’t won the RWC since 1999, the Tri-Nations since 2001, nor the Bledisloe since 2002.
It’s high time the Wallabies stood up to be counted, and overtime for rugby league to gets its house in order.