Reds players need a wake-up call

whilst i do not disagree with anything you have said here, my understanding was that pocock was lost to the reds, more because eddie jones set out his plan for him which involved the first season or two in club teams and on the bench learning the game before he'd get to start. john mitchell (think he was coaching the force at the time) and the force had him in their team from day one. if that is true, hard to blame anyone but jones.

@Alex The Australian has long been an infamous right wing rag and mouth peice for News Corp. Denying it targets you as either another New Corp employee and/or blissfully ignorant of being another brick in their wall. Fixing rugby in australia requires improving the performance of RA, not gifting the whole sport to a ruthless predator that has no interest in anything but their own profit that year. You think things can't get much worse huh? - just wait a few yrs as the WBs slide out of the top 10, there's no rugby on TV at all and it's only semi-prof in Australia. That's where News Corp control will take us.

Well...obviously

you can have reasons for leaving but stay anyway Yeah but you won't be leaving without reason to.

Michelle Gunn is the editor of the Australian I don't believe she has any great axe to grind. Your conspiracy theory is not based on fact. The game of rugby here in Australia is in a sorry financial state and as long as people don't see the problems, it won't be fixed until it goes bankrupt. News Corp has no interest financially at all. Many people out their like myself are horrified by the financial wastage of the last ten years. RA doesn't even own a stadium, nothing, can't even pay it it's players, it's a disgrace to professional sport. And changing chairs on the Titanic won't help its cause.

@Alex Don't learn do you. Nobody said News Corp are desperate to takeover RA. Takeovers to save a few $ million is normal business for them. How do you think companies progress to become multi-nationals - by being nice guys? Foxtel are semi desperate though now due to falling subscriptions the past 3 years and need viable sport content to even stay afloat. The News Corp takeover has coincided with the renewal of the broadcasting rights contract. News Corp stands to make at least $10M including no free to air TV option if they could discredit the current RA Board and take it over so their pathetic $M20 offfer for the contract is rubber stamped. Not big bikkies for News Corp obviously but still easy and cheap for them to do. All they had to do is call in their self seeking attack dogs like Kearns, Jones, ex captains. Plus use and manipulate people like you who beleive any crap they report.

3 players with the attitude. What can rugby do for me? not what can I do for rugby? Is this a generational thing? These guys now forget all the volunteers working for their benefit over the years to get them there, we don't hear those hard working people who devoted their time for the betterment of rugby spitting the dummy over a pay cut, they have put in the yards unpaid and with little recognition. I say wake up and behave like real men.

I am aware of media penalties etc, the loss of money on broadcast negotiators isn't cool for the Australian rugby public and supporters. I am not a fan of Alan Jones either, although he was a better coach than Cheika. I'll be honest I don't think News Corp or anyone else are desperate to take over RA, it's a problem child no one wants ask Optus.

OMG Alex. Start viewing "media watch" on the ABC and learn something about the mass media. Media corporations and individuals like Alan Jones are often sued. But the fines are so small it doesn't impair their determination to continue. Plus they deliberately lie, invent, manipulate, deceive so often in every publication and report that it's impossible for anyone to keep track of it all. Only solution for the average punter is to question everything and not to beleive most of it. You're just another sheep if you do. I'm not defending RA but becoming another puppet of News Corp is much worse, and will totally stuff rugby in Australia.

You know - you can have reasons for leaving but stay anyway...

Do you understand liable laws within media if that wasn't true would have to be withdrawn and or sued, its true, RA is a defunct wasteful organisation who is at this point technically bankrupt as it owns nothing and has borrowed money to even function.

@Alex Yeah - you got that from News Corp and you beleive it without any questions even when they have a clear motive in their current takeover of RA. You are very naive if you beleive what's printed in those "publications" and what's more you repeat the crap to others. So that makes you part of their docile sheep flock. The Australian is a News Corp rag that no-one should have any confidence in. SMH and The Age are just as bad imo :thumbup:

Well put somehow an ineffective RA board has managed to deflect its inadequacies and start blaming players for not accepting huge paycut. It's the boards job to make sure it can cover it wages not the government. RA couldn't borrow against anything as I'm aware it owns nothing at all. NZRU is a 5 percent share holder in Sky TV at least.

Wwwthe australian and other publications was released by Castle herself. Are you surprised they could that useless don't be.

These are the same Reds who stood down Quade on full pay, before paying him to play elsewhere. Thorn made contracts disposable in Queensland. The players job is to play well. If they don't, they are replaced. The organisations job is to make money and be sustainable. If they don't, why should the players prop them up, given in the same circumstance of non-performance the organisation wouldn't think twice about flicking them.

@Alex RE - $1M on a broker - exactly where did you get that info from? News Corp??

Yes hard to believe that would be the case, but RA is a special beast with ideas that can be hard to comprehend. Especially when the negotiations Could have been done by CEO and Chairman for just their wages.

You can't have checks and balances if you don't have a plan to measure against. The so called '2016-2020 Strategic Plan' was just a bunch of high sounding targets with no detailed plan on how to achieve them. Definitely no disclosure each year on progress against them, or more importantly, a new plan to reverse the decline.

Not contingent on getting the deal done? Who pays a spotters fee or commission or brokerage fee up front, with no guarantee of an outcome?

You have got that right, from an organisation that was already hemorrhaging money, to waste such sums is inexcusable. How can a group get so many things wrong so often. The ludicrous state it has found itself in should never of been allowed to happen. Where were the financial checks and balances.