Twiggy: The hero we need but not the one RA deserves

Sorry, dyed in the wool Union fan. I'm not interested in League despite growing up in the NW of England.

love reading your comments mate on various issues well balanced please contribute more

All good mate, no need to apologise!

I think Twiggy had a few other things going on in his life at time. Not the least was the iron ore price crash and the threat to FMG. He said he initially he found it really hard to believe that that the ARU would actually really axe the Force in favour of the Rebels. The facts just did not add up. And then later Clyne was not returning his calls and finding excuses not to meet Twiggy, because as the Senate inquiry revealed, the ARU had long since decided the Force were going to get the chop no matter what.

After looking at all the comments it is refreshing to see the majority agree in principle that the RA board has had its day. My question is how do you remove declyne & co. I assume it will need a request a vote of no confidence in their leadership and restructure the voting powers to allow a equal vote system for each state. If this possible in our lifetime or are we just wishing for a miracle to happen.

Thanks Perthslayer, Obviously this is a hypothetical discussion but we need someone with his business acumen, wealth creation & apparent love of rugby involved in the game. An undervalued quality of a great leader is the ability to find & delegate to the appropriately qualified & motivated people.

Sheek. After the boom the iron ore price fell to $50 and FMG had massive debts. His strong suit is sales, and he sold the FMG story to the banks and investors who rolled over FMG’s enormous debts. He then hired people to do what he knew needed doing, but didn’t know how best to do it himself. His CV is very relevant to the AR role, but this is all hot air probably as I don’t think he’d want it!!

I totally agree that 50 million dollars is a magnificent sum and I'm am sure that some in the cash strapped RA are still having nightmares at the memory of turning it down. The fact that the ARU turned it down would suggest to me that their decision was made and could not be reversed. There has been some suggestion that the decision was made months earlier but the ARU did not have the spine to go public with their intentions. As you posted Twiggy's offer was in the " dying hours". If my memory serves me correctly the ARU had to bail out the Western Force to the tune of 900k in their last season. ( let's not get into the argument about the 2.3 million or so that the Rebels received ). I am not trying to take away from Twiggy's last ditch attempt to save the Force but surely if they had even 20% of that 50 million and didn't need propping up by the ARU, with their on field success ( 2nd in the Aust. comp ) and financial stability would have made it a lot harder for the ARU to justify to the rugby public across Australia the cutting of the Force.

I am also an ex- Western Force supporter and am gutted at the loss of our team in the super rugby. While I applaud the effort of Twiggy Forest for all he's has done for WA rugby the only question I have is " why did he leave it so late to come to the party" While I am not privy to the internal politics of Western Force rugby, Stevie Wonder could see that we struggled financially after losing Emirates as a major sponsor and struggled to find a replacement after their withdrawal. Case in point our players were running around with different sponsors on the back of their jerseys. Surely that was the time we need Twiggy's financial support the most, some two years earlier. From someone looking from the very outer circle it looked to me that the lack of financial support made the Western Force very venerable when it came to cutting a team from the competition. I am also not so naïve to believe that given the disgraceful handling of the situation by RA or the ARU as they were at the time that there was already a deal done and it may not have made any difference. ( so poorly handled they had to rebrand to Rugby Australia to try and distance themselves from the debacle.) Am I alone in thinking with Twiggy it was a case of "too little too late".?

After looking at all the comments it is refreshing to see the majority agree in principle that the RA board has had its day. My question is how do you remove declyne & co. I assume it will need a request a vote of no confidence in their leadership and restructure the voting powers to allow a equal vote system for each state. If this possible in our lifetime or are we just wishing for a miracle to happen.

You must wonder about the wisdom to pay a single player (Folau) $5 million for a four year contract when a whole franchise cost you $4.3 million per year to run? Folau and Hooper are among the top 10 paid players in the world - they are paid more than better players across the ditch.

If that is true then they're cooked because if they honestly don't think their job is to generate enough revenue to ensure the game is adequately funded in this country then put a fork in them they are already done.

I tend not to go all in for the messiah angle with Forrest but he does represent something I have long thought that should happen in Rugby in this country. A separation of the pro game from pretty much every other aspect. This would allow for it to finally focus on what’s best for it and not the national team in its operations while seeking out beneficial financial arrangements and investment. Personally, I’d like to see the 4 Aus SR squads jump across to GRR while lowering the salary cap to no more than $4m a season for the main squad. Yes, we will see Wallabies go offshore. But that’s not the worst thing. Instead of the current level of top ups we are seeing with match payments added RA could open up selection to include OS players with only match payments included. At least for a while this would probably be the preferred model with the focus on the current pro squads to look at further expanding the pro base and retaining emerging talent. The money (which would be between $1.4-1.6m per squad) saved could be the either used to ensure the continued operation of the respective teams or used to retain our top line emerging talent. This would then allow GRR to have 12 teams and potentially run a 22 round schedule.

I wouldn't be so sure that an explicit clause is required - it's been debated ad nauseum on here so I really don't want to go into it (ever) again but there's reason to believe that RA are on solid footing without it. If RA folds, it will set Australia back decades as vested interests return to fight for control. Billionaire or no, I cannot see certain elements looking to Twiggy for leadership when they wouldn't even listen to their peers from GPS schools and the same state.

Yep. Building a new training base onsite.

So instead of saying greatest donor on the planet, you meant in Australia. That changes the context of your statement significantly. I applaud Twiggy for what he's done for the Force/rugby in general but I am not convinced he's the saviour.

Horse, Well done, I support your article.