There was some interesting reading in The Australian last week as their rugby union correspondents produced starkly contrasting coverage of the continuing Kurtley Beale saga.
On Wednesday, Wayne Smith wrote a story which said Australian Rugby Union CEO Bill Pulver’s job was on the line if Beale was sacked.
“Essentially it comes down to this: if Bill Pulver sacks Kurtley Beale, he himself will be sacked,” Smith said.
“If Beale stays, Pulver will be spared. Perhaps that’s an oversimplification but I think not. Whatever fragile truce Pulver cobbled together with Michael Cheika to enable him to feel comfortable stepping into the Wallabies coaching job at desperately short notice almost certainly would not survive Beale’s contract being torn up.
“That’s not to imply Cheika made Beale’s retention a condition of accepting the job but he had made it amply apparent even before the Wallabies coaching position was on offer that he viewed his retention as vital to the Waratah’s chances of success next year.
“And that is what this whole ugly imbroglio is all about ensuring the success of the Waratahs in 2015. Virtually everything that has happened in Australian rugby since the incident on South African Airways flight 222 on September 28 has been driven by one overriding concern, to ensure Beale pulls on a sky blue jumper in 2015.
“Innocent people have been sacrificed to ensure it happens, reputations compromised, time-honoured principles abandoned. All to ensure that a player who has, if my information is correct, 11 major incidents on his Australian rugby union rap sheet including a number of off-field acts of physical violence is not lost to NSW.
“Now, whatever one might think of Beale the person, Beale the rugby player is quite exceptional. He made a key contribution to the Tah’s Super Rugby title win this year and Cheika, wearing his NSW coach’s cap, insisted a week ago that he was literally irreplaceable. In the event of Beale’s contract being torn up by the Code of Conduct tribunal, Cheika indicated, he wouldn’t even bother trying to find a like-for-like replacement because there simply isn’t one.”
Incredibly, in the very same newspaper the following day, Smith’s colleague Bret Harris had a story which refuted these claims.
“NSW Waratahs chairman Roger Davis has rejected suggestions there has been a concerted effort to ensure star Wallabies playmaker Kurtley Beale is cleared to play for the Super Rugby champions next year.
“Beale was fined $45,000 by an ARU tribunal last Friday night for sending an offensive text message to the then Wallabies business manager Di Patston in June but is still being investigated for an in-flight incident involving the former ARU staffer.
“Patston resigned on returning early to Australia from the tour to Argentina, while coach Ewen McKenzie, who employed her, also quit on the day of the Brisbane Test against the All Blacks on October 18.
“The Australian’s Wayne Smith yesterday wrote that this whole ugly imbroglio was about ensuring Beale was not lost to the Waratahs. Davis denied that yesterday.
“I was amazed at that this morning. I don’t know where that is coming from,” Davis told Harris.
Obviously, this is a case of The Australian’s two rugby scribes not being on the same page. What to make of this? I’m not sure.
To add to the confusion, The Australian’s chief sports writer Patrick Smith, more of an AFL man, said in an opinion piece:
“Rugby has imploded. That is not hyperbole but an accurate reflection of the trouble in which the sport finds itself. The issues that have undone rugby have been meticulously and regularly detailed by colleagues Wayne Smith and Bret Harris.”
Indeed.
Ruckin' Oaf
Guest
Oh yeah you can always trust the NSWRU to act in the very best interests of the game and if you have any doubts about that just ask any representative of the NSWRU and they'll tell you the same.
AlsBoyce
Roar Guru
Looks like you need a bit more time in the head bin before you come back, formeropenside.
Mike
Guest
"they ignore the flashing of the private school tie and the shining masonic ring " Ah, a soul-brother to Mr Wiggin in the Architect Sketch: "I see. Well, of course, this is just the sort of blinkered philistine pig-ignorance I've come to expect from you non-creative garbage. You sit there on your loathsome spotty behinds squeezing blackheads, not caring a tinker's cuss for the struggling artist. You excrement, you whining hypocritical toadies with your colour TV sets and your Tony Jacklin golf clubs and your bleeding masonic secret handshakes. You wouldn't let me join, would you, you blackballing bastards. Well I wouldn't become a Freemason now if you went down on your lousy stinking knees and begged me."
Mike
Guest
Nice to know you are doing your best to prove the point you are arguing against - and don't even realise it, as usual!
Steve Connolly
Roar Rookie
I did Red Menace - escaped to Queensland in 2000
Wardad
Guest
Really ? What one bloke who plays for the ABS does isnt the ABS or Kiwis culture any more than KBs actions are the sum total of wobblies or Aussie culture . You just stick to what you think you know .
Boomeranga
Guest
Ugly truths are necessary and healthy for a good society but I don't think they actually stop at truths. For me, the truth is We (defined as The Roar community sans the non-Australian posters who have their own issues, and don't doubt it for a second - they do have their own issues (kiwis glug glug, punch punch, wink wink; Safas - the amount of Wattle tree is out of control) have the rugby culture we have created over generations and continue today. For me, it isn't really the Me-ja or the ARU. We fight day in and day out and we love it. We have the culture we have created, but it is ours and it has served us ok.
Red Menace
Guest
Steve Connolly, did you previously work for AAP in the Canberra Press Gallery? I still work there....it's doing my head in but it pays the bills.
Red Menace
Guest
I agree Willy, not sure how these two guys have gotten away with it for so long.
willy
Guest
True, RM, but they both get paid for writing absolute tripe
Red Menace
Guest
Maybe you should have said, "Is Wayne Smith, Queensland's version of David Lord?".
Matthew Skellett
Guest
This is the only thing i find admirable about the Murdoch Media-that they ignore the flashing of the private school tie and the shining masonic ring to actually say the ugly truths about Australian Rugby. Until the ARU and the Major stakeholders in Australian Rugby face up to their sins and be prepared tp become a lot more equitable and transparent -the public will go on finding better things to do than indulge the australian rugby circus mcgirkus
willy
Guest
Is Wayne Smith actually David Lord? I think we have a right to know
Stray Gator
Roar Rookie
And as for Patrick Smith - the man makes his living as a rank hyperbolist. Rugby has not collapsed violently inwards; rather, its governing body has been found seriously wanting for speed and sure-footedness in its response to a crisis that, in significant part, resulted from lax internal governance controls and ceding too much structural control to a head coach. All fixable.
AndyS
Guest
So Smith wrote his piece saying the NSWRU had a hand in it all and then Harris reported that the head of the NSWRU denied it strenuously. Astonishing....! ;)
Funk
Guest
I just spat my coffee all over my computer screen when I read "much ore balanced view along with Spiro Zavaas".. Farking funny!!
Rob G
Guest
Wayne smith's opinion can be trusted about as much as formeropenside's
formeropenside
Guest
Sure, there is no bias out of NSW, ever. The Beale affair and subsequent Tah coup culminating in the unprecented dual appointment of Waratah and Wallaby coach is the most blatant power grab I can recall, coming on the back of an out of nowhere lucky win of the Super Final due to an incorrect penalty. Cheika has kept Beale for next season for the Tahs, and is irrevocably tainted as "Wallaby" coach. Nice to know that the NSW/ARU will make a sexual harassment case their grounds to put their own man in the top job.
Eveready
Guest
It has to be noted that Wayne Smith is and always been a rabid Queensland corespondent whilst Brett Harris covers NSW Jacqueline magenay gives a much ore balanced view along with Spiro Zavaas