SPIRO's Rolling Maul: ARU is wrong to put boot into grassroots rugby

As Australian Rugby Union hurtles towards replicating the Feudal system, taking money from the poor supporters to fund their rich quest for Wallabies supremacy, Welsh Rugby Union may have figurative blood on its hands.

Elsewhere, Sam Burgess is quietly racking up the minutes with new side Bath, but is he being utilised in the best possible position?

1. Why is the ARU turning on grassroots rugby?
Peter FitzSimons was an intrepid journalist last week for Fairfax Media when he launched a ferocious and justified attack on the Mosman-dominated ARU for charging players registration funds totalling $168.50 (don’t you like the precision of the charge!) for senior players, $79.50 for juniors and $44 for juniors.

The charge is going to pay for new insurance and administration fees.

But who gets this administration money? Apparently, the ARU does. And what is it really going to pay for? The Wallabies.

In real terms this means that clubs that are battling football, league and AFL for players will have to find more than double their registration money than they have in the past. An example given by FitzSimons is the Oatley Rugby Club. Last year they paid $11,000. Next year they will pay out in insurance costs about $27,000.

As FitzSimons would say, listen up ARU officials, “… squeezing an extra $30 out of five-year-olds, while giving the Wallabies a $14,000 bonus for every Test they play – WIN, LOSE OR DRAW – is madness, most particularly when out of 14 Tests this year, they won only six!”

There must be a better way of financing the Wallabies. To begin with, why not put significant incentives for winning performances into their contracts and reduced Test payments for losing performances?

What about other alternatives? I’ve been told, for instance, that millions of dollars could be put to better use if the percentage of television monies going to the professional game were reduced by only a couple of points.

One of the frustrating things about the current ARU administration is that it exercises its control without bothering, in general, to explain to the other stakeholders, the media and fans particularly, what is happening and why it is happening.

It is difficult, for instance, to know when the ARU holds board meetings. What decisions are taken at these meeting are difficult to find out. I get plenty of emails from the ARU. But rarely, if ever, do these emails relate to board matters.

The New Zealand Rugby Union, on the other hand, regularly emails rugby writers in New Zealand and around the world (I get their emails, for instance) about their board meetings and the decisions made at them and why these decisions were taken.

The latest media release from the New Zealand Rugby Union about the annual awards ceremony had this comment, too, from chairman Brent Impey about the achievement of registering 150,000 players for the first time.

“We often say, but it’s true, when the community game is in great shape, the game will thrive at the upper levels. It is the foundation on which to build success and we thank all those toiling on behalf of the community game who can take credit for the achievements we celebrate here.”

So there we have it. The ARU is putting the boot into grassroots rugby in a big way while the New Zealand Rugby Union is going out of its way to do everything they can to encourage rugby, at all levels, throughout New Zealand.

The ARU opts for a top down model. The New Zealand Rugby Union is clearly opting for a bottom up model.

It would be interesting to know whether during the discussion of the massive increase in registration and insurance fees of its players the ARU board thought about implementing the New Zealand Rugby Union model.

2. Sam Burgess should play at inside centre for England
Sam Burgess has played in his third rugby match for Bath. Two earlier matches were from the bench. Over the weekend he started at inside centre for Bath and played well, tackling strongly (as you would expect) and making several deft plays.

Bath’s head coach is Mike Ford. His son, George, plays at number 10 for Bath and recently for England. For reasons that I can’t understand, Mike Ford seems to believe that Burgess will be better suited to the back row in the rugby game than at inside centre.

I say I can’t understand this because Stuart Lancaster, England’s coach, has said that he sees Burgess as an England player but only as an inside centre.

Why would Ford want to play Burgess in positions that England are well catered for and where the England coach, anyway, says he won’t even consider playing him?

The fact of the matter is that Brad Thorn is the only great league convert to rugby who has starred playing in the forwards at the Test. There have been plenty of great league converts who have starred in the backs.

Burgess, if given the chance, could do this playing at inside centre. And the reason is pretty obvious. Burgess has a tremendous running and tackling game. Playing at inside centre in rugby is the equivalent of what he did in league. He plays in the middle of the field. He is expected to make strong runs. And to make equally strong tackles.

The nearest equivalent to Burgess as a league player is Sonny Bill Williams. Williams has been a standout at inside centre and the occasional, very occasional, matches he played in the forwards for Toulon saw him having little or no impact.

What should be obvious to Mike Ford, but apparently isn’t so, is that if Burgess plays in the forwards he has to learn a huge number of new skills in the scrums, lineouts and tackle area that could involve years of learning. As well, the running lines in the forwards are very much different from those in league. The running lines of inside centre though are virtually the same as in league.

The main difference for Burgess to master is that rugby does not allow tackling anywhere near the head. Clips I have seen of Burgess in his rugby mode have shown him instinctively trying to knock someone’s head off its block. He will have to get this head-high tendency out of his game or face more time on the bench in the naughty chair than on the field.

Like Sonny Bill Williams, Burgess is a smart player and I have no doubt that he will learn whatever he has to learn, as an inside centre, quite quickly.

My guess is that Lancaster will bring Burgess into the England squad for the Six Nations tournament early next year. His position in the squad will be inside centre, where England have a definite weakness. And depending how well Burgess adjusts to the rugby game, he will at the least be on the bench for one or more Tests.

It would not surprise me if Burgess makes the adjustment to Test match rugby as quickly as Sonny Bill Williams did. They are both physically imposing players with special athletic abilities, and with playing skills that are transferable from league to rugby.

What a prospect in the Rugby World Cup 2015 if Burgess and Sonny Bill Williams face each other playing for England and New Zealand in a clash of the giants…

3. Wales supporters accused of political incorrectness for singing Delilah
Oh, no no Delilah.

For reasons lost in time, Welsh rugby supporters in the 1970s adopted the Tom Jones hit, Delilah, as a favourite song to sing out when Wales were going well.

Well, Tom Jones is Welsh and Delilah has a catchy chorus line that lends itself to the boisterous, resonant male voice. And no matter what the actual result of Tests at Millennium Stadium, Wales always wins the singing.

A former leader of the national party Plaid Cymru, Dafydd Iwan, wants the song banned from Millennium Stadium, on the grounds that its lyrics trivialise the idea of murdering a woman (“She stood there laughing … I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more”).

But does anyone singing out the chorus even know or care about these lyrics? Are the offensive words even sung?

The Welsh Rugby Union says that there is no groundswell of opinion to censor the use of Delilah. Well, they would say this wouldn’t they as they play Delilah before the Tests at Millennium Stadium.

My guess is that this is a silly season suggestion from a former politician trying to generate some publicity for the lead-up to next year’s general election in the UK.

As soon as Wales swing into attack during their first Six Nations match next year, Delilah will be back as part of the fans effort to kill off any success the visitors might be having on the field.