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This article surmising the sporting future of the league star Benji Marshall is being written on Wednesday morning, around 8.30, with the 2013 State of Origin decider coming up later tonight.
The conjunction of the Marshall matter and league’s biggest event is crucial to understanding its dynamics.
Marshall, a New Zealander, is not eligible (even under the elastic rules regarding State of Origin status) to play in the series.
But he is one of the biggest stars in the NRL. He sells more West Tigers gear and puts more bums on seats for the club than the rest of the players put together.
On the more general rugby league world, Marshall has a broad appeal to kids (the future of the code), young women (future mothers) and to metro young men (the future money men who will invest in clubs and the game, generally with other people’s money).
In the unending battle of the codes for popular support in the lucrative and competitive east coast of Australia market, Marshall with his easy manner, his good looks and the exciting, highly skilled way he plays with his darting runs, casual flick passes and Fred Astaire dancing feet is a matinee idol.
This combination of being exciting to watch and often the match-winner makes Marshall a hot commodity in league, and now in rugby.
So far in the fog of the negotiations about his playing future only a couple of facts (are they even facts?) seem to sort of emerge.
Fact 1: Marshall is leaving West Tigers.
Fact 2: He is going to leave league and play rugby.
And that is about it. Even ‘Fact 2’ is pretty murky. Several other NRL clubs are making overtures and the ARL has tried to do its best to keep Marshall in their game.
The likelihood perhaps maybe is that Marshall will play a 12-match season playing rugby in Japan where he will be paid $1 million. Nice work if you can get it. He tried to do this a couple of years ago and was refused permission by the league authorities.
His mate Sonny Bill Williams has taken this path so there are contacts and a history in taking the Japanese option.
At the end of the Japanese season, which starts when the NRL season ends, Marshall then has to decide where he wants to play his serious rugby. Three Super Rugby franchises are interested in him: the Waratahs, the Blues and the Rebels.
Before we discuss the possibilities with these franchises (and I would stress that we only know about these matters through media speculation), we should make it clear where Marshall could play his best in the rugby game.
I would think he could play at number 10, inside centre or fullback. Like a lot of league players (remember Wendell Sailor) he isn’t a particularly good defensive player. It is one of the fallacies of modern sport that league players are better tacklers than rugby players. Some are. Many are not.
The tackling is different. In league, as Brad Thorn has pointed out many times, players run to be tackled. In rugby, players try to run to space.
The strength of Marshall’s game, anyway, is attack and setting up runners, not defence. And he would be more effective, in my view, than Quade Cooper in doing this.
I think, therefore, that any rugby team that wants him (or can afford him) would want to play him as a play maker, and this means the number 10 position at best or inside centre as the second option.
The Rebels are developing young Hegarty as a number 10 but they lack an inside centre of quality.
The Waratahs have Bernard Foley as their designated and successful number 10 and would have to play Marshall at inside centre.
The Blues do not have an established number 10, and they are looking at Beauden Barrett from the Hurricanes as their long-term pivot. So Marshall could get a gig with the Blues, if the Barrett negotiations fall through.
There are two further complications. Marshall has stated that he has had an ambition since he was a kid growing up in New Zealand to play for the All Blacks. In my view, at 28 he is unlikely to force his way into the All Blacks Test squad.
But there are the Olympics in 2016 with the New Zealand Sevens (which are now called the All Black Sevens) for consideration. There is no doubt, that even at 30, Marshall would be a sensational Rugby Sevens player.
But playing for the All Blacks either in the 15-man or Sevens game would be dependent on him playing his rugby in New Zealand.
So, if the ambition is to play for an All Blacks side, Marshall has to play in New Zealand, probably with the Blues.
But there is another calculation here. The Blues franchise would need top-up money from the NZRU. There is already considerable debate in NZ, as there is here in Australia, about the value of giving Marshall a huge top-up to play rugby.
Also for Marshall there is the consideration that his extended family now lives in Sydney. His partner, too, is developing a good career in Sydney. Will he be prepared to live for most of the year out of Sydney, if he goes to Auckland and follows his All Blacks dream?
I started this piece by pointing out that everything concerning the Marshall switch (if indeed there is to be a switch) is up in the air. I would finish by saying that if Marshall does play rugby in the Super Rugby tournament next season, he will be good.
He will make the transition to the more complex, complicated game of rugby more easily than most other converts from league. He has the background of playing rugby as a kid and following the game intently while being a league star. His league skills, too, the quick-witted passing and the devastating, agile running will transfer easily into the modern rugby game.
All that remains now is for him to make up his mind where he is going to play.
But for the franchises in contention, I would argue that they should go flat out to get him on their books. He will be worth the money and effort in signing him up.