Rugby Australia, you can't be serious?

Genuine question here. Why don't these players have a contract with variable rates? That is they get a certain base pay and then they get performance pay based on selection. So for example a top player might get a guaranteed $600,000 per year which goes to $800,000 on selection to SR and then goes to $1million on international selection. Thus if they get dumped from a level they take a drop in pay until they can get back up to that level. Time out for injuries would not count as being dropped. Would that be so unfair to players? Most people on such high salaries have a large part of it conditional on performance. Why not top Rugby Players? Is it just that Raelene Castle and RA are incompetent?

Where is Sean McMahon?????

I don't follow Rugby closely but it seems to me we have great difficulty containing the All Black forwards. Therefor I don't see how we we can beat them with their forwards rolling forward and ours going backward.

a lot of very average people get overpaid in Australia for doing nothing , just one more to the long list

Right. Where to start? Ah bugger it, yep - make sure Hoops gets more than a European soccer player. I mean, LeBron pulls in $85M. Federer collects $65M. Based on this, there are no logical reasons not to triple Hooper's pay. My cat said so. Exclamation point.

Theres so much moaning about this Hooper contract because the media adds up the number across all the years to make it sound huge. You know what my 13 year old son asked me on hearing this: "Dad, why do sports stars in Australia get paid so little? Theres 2nd rate soccer players in Europe who are paid three times this amount". So thats what a 13 year old thinks who hasnt had the time to become cynical and jealous. Hoope'rs a freak on the field and one of our consistently best players. The best coaches in the country at all levels throughout his career have found a way to get him on the field because he changes games and score more points than any other forward in the country. This game is about scoring after all. We can get all the pilfers in the world and if you dont score you dont win. Period

Fionn, I agree but Pooper did not play in 2017 as Pocock had his sabattical

Yep. I don’t have any issue when Hoops shooting out on the flyhalf / first five as a defensive strategy. He’s got great timing and execution. Mind you, this is also where most of his “dominant tackles” also come from - flat footed, hospital pass awaiting, bantamweight inside backs. The issue is that unspecified “quick shoots” or cover tackles are then often used to excuse Hooper’s inordinate number of poor and/or missed tackles when in fact the vast majority are straight, one-on-one bump offs he shouldn’t be missing. I counted four in one test match alone (against the Pumas) last season (2 by the centre, 1 by a flanker and 1 by the hooker). All head on, shoulder poised, just timing and technique slightly out and, bang - @rse, tumble, elbow. It is not an uncommon scenario. The bloke is good, gutsy defender. But he is not a great defender by any stretch.

cheers cb, thats exactly what i was getting at. i will say that a lot of the shoot out of the line ones doesnt matter as muchas it forces people inside and effectively ends their planned move. still, would be much better if he shot out and stuck the tackle.

all makes sense baklkies, surprising revenue has doubled in a decade despite this. i suupose it may have to do with the changing tv landscape as well with live sports being one of the few things people will sit through ads for these days

The RFU have not done that for the entirety of the decade. This is a new thing. And that's not the same as distributing the entire player salary amounts. A top tier team that is consistently ranked in the top 5. There is really only 3 others that have been able to say that for the decade. New Zealand, England and South Africa. Also the NZRU spent $1.2B NZD in the reporting periods 2008-2017. I've tried to find RWC costs in here but the totals go: 2015 - $134M 2016 - $169M 2017 - $223M So it seems any costs associated have been outstripped by huge increases in running costs. They spend $90M more in 2017 than they did in the period 1 Jan 2015 to 31 Dec 2015.

Hooper wouldn't walk into the top 10 international XV’s .

Then Hooper stabbed Mckenzie in the back 6 months later.

Crash Ball2 Wonderfully written. Exacty my thoughts . Bravo, What daring! What outrageousness! What insolence! What arrogance! ... I salute you.

'The other is a top tier international team. What’s the market rate for these? I’m betting we’d find the NZRU have spent similar. The RFU spent more except none of that was salaries for Premiership clubs.' A top tier international team that is wildly inconsistent, has severely declining crowds for its home test matches and used as a personal play thing by Cheika. I seriously doubt the financially prudent NZRU have thrown that amount of money away. The RFU actually do compensate the Premiership clubs salary wise in regards to players in Eddie's EPS and they also throw financial incentives to clubs that produce England players. That deal alone is one of the reasons why they are cost cutting.

Soapit Super Rugby and the 4 Nations has barely gone up enough compared to the European competitions. The same broadcasters since 1996 have got in pretty much unopposed so there is no incentive for them to increase their bids. The competitors like BeIN, ESPN and Eurosport are there in the Australian and NZ markets but I have never seen them mentioned in regards to putting in bids to challenge Foxsports. The last few rights deals in France have gone up due to the threat of BeIN sports (Hong Kong Hutchison backed Orange Sports was another competitor) to established broadcaster Canal. They have also packaged off the Pro D2 separately with some Top 14 games televised on terrestrial tv. There is something that needs to be considered as an option.

Really? Read would be on around $285,000 from Super Rugby, Mitre 10 Cup and Mitre 10 Cup availability bonus. That's before the All Blacks pay him a cent. The NZRU spend about $80M a year on employee benefits, salaries being the primary one. So I'd say that leaves $500,000+ for their captain. Funnily enough nearly 2 years ago it was reported that Read was about to become the first All Black to earn more than $1M a year... https://www.sport24.co.za/Rugby/nz-rugby-boosts-all-blacks-pay-packets-20161214

The biggest problem with this decision is that Australia will have to pick Hooper from now on - regardless of his form and the inevitable better players coming on...Can't see this as anything but a plus for the ABs in particular...

EJ you know it ,we know it, Hooper is not worth 1.2 million a year over 5 years .He runs with the ball. That`s all he does, and he gets 1.2 million a year ?. FFS Now we see this talent punted Arnold Timu Timani, White, Fardy, QC, Higginbotham, Gill, Mowen, Jones, etc etc the list is a mile long, but Clown keeps selecting continual underperformers Hanigan Foley Robertson and Phipps ?

An Absolute debacle. How are RA going to pay the many players that are worth more to the Wallabies and are more popular and likeable than Hopper ? Will they get 1.2 million a year ?