The Wrap: Northern hemisphere turmoil provides an opportunity for the south. Or does it?

It all seemed to be going to script. The commercial imbalance in professional rugby squeezing the small markets of Australia and New Zealand to the point where boardroom dominance began to be reflected on the field.

Last November, the All Blacks left Paris with their backside handed to them on a plate by France, 40-25, then this year, Ireland and England notched 2-1 away series victories, against New Zealand and Australia respectively. Wales too, ran South Africa much closer than anyone expected, away from home.

And despite the Rugby World Cup tally standing at 8 to 1 in favour of the southern nations, most expert and amateur pundits fancy France to shift that equation around in next year’s tournament.

It’s not only about results. Regular watchers of the English Premiership in recent times know that tired old tropes about slow, boring, kick-dominated rugby are well wide of the mark. Refereeing too, feels sharper and more in tune with today’s demands for faster, more continuous rugby.

Contributing to the shift in balance, with the vast majority of its elite professional players following the money, South Africa has effectively transitioned into a northern hemisphere rugby nation. This has left Australia and New Zealand to consider how it can find sufficient funds to continue to keep their best players at home, and keep the sport healthy across all levels.

But events of the last few weeks have shown that it’s not all red roses, Burgundy and Bouef Bourguignon in the north. The English Premiership has shed it itself of the Worcester Warriors, with the Coventry-based Wasps looking certain to fall as well, after abandoning their fixture this weekend.

There are specific factors at play in both failures. Question marks around motives, propriety, and Premiership Rugby’s governance processes with respect to ownership, have been a long-standing concern at Worcester. Wasps’ troublesome financial position rests less with rugby operations and more with their events and conference centre suffering devastating COVID-related fall-out.

 (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

Nevertheless, the underlying financial prognosis for the premiership clubs is poor. The 13 clubs carry, between them, debt of 500 million pounds, including 36 million owed in tax. Individually, debt ranges from Wasps’ eye-watering 112 million, to Exeter’s comparatively trifling 13 million.

This list includes Saracens, 41 million in debt, who in 2020, were found guilty of gross salary cap breaches and sent to metaphorical Coventry; that is, not to be confused with Wasps’ home base.

In many cases, these imposts will be absorbed by owners as a cost of pursuing their hobby. But the situation is not sustainable; at some point a conveyor belt of fools eager to be parted from their money runs out of rubber. And fools.

It is also important to remember that beneath the salacious headlines trumpeting failure and owners burning up money, there are people involved; players and their families, and staff scrambling to find employment elsewhere; in many cases forced to relocate overseas away from family and friend networks.

English rugby accordingly finds itself at a crossroads. One path is a continuation of the same ‘house of cards’ model that will in time, see the ‘rich’ clubs consolidate at the top, and other clubs weaken to a point where their owners run out of patience battling it out for 8th and 9th every season, or find themselves unable to withstand changed circumstances and fold, to be replaced or resuscitated, or not, dependent upon the emergence or otherwise of new benefactors.

Alternatively, there may be an agreement between the clubs, in conjunction with the RFU, to cut their cloth to suit and operate within their means.

That’s code for clubs trimming their operations, with coaching and support staff taking on multiple roles and – dare I say it – player salaries decreasing; not to what players might believe they are worth or what they aspire to, but to what the game can afford.

That’s the theory, anyway. And, at first glance, that bodes well for Australia and New Zealand, hinting at a narrowing of the discrepancy in player contracts that has grown during the professional era.

But don’t hold your breath, things are not that straightforward.

Across the channel, FFR President Bernard Laporte and high-profile Montpellier owner Mohed Altrad are tied up in a corruption scandal, with a list of charges including bribery, breach of trust, misuse of corporate assets, and concealment of misuse, tied to an arrangement made in 2019.

With a court decision due in December, NZ Rugby are interested onlookers, in the first year of a six-year jersey sponsorship deal with Altrad (the Western Force also have a jersey deal with Altrad).

Should Altrad be found guilty, New Zealand will have no trouble finding a replacement, albeit at a discount; money it can’t afford to forgo.

One year out from a World Cup, one where the awarding of hosting rights to France was shrouded in controversy, such disarray should represent a major cause for alarm.

I suspect it won’t matter a jot. World Rugby’s in-built opacity renders it nigh incapable of true accountability. South African fans will continue to squeal at the injustice of being denied hosting rights – because if it wasn’t this matter, it would be some other perceived injustice – and even if Laporte and Altrad are found guilty, the French will simply shrug their shoulders and, as is the French way, the show will go on regardless.

Stumbles as important as these in England and France might appear to offer opportunity to Australia and New Zealand, but they do not alter the underlying reality.

Everything remains relative. The markets for rugby in England and France have not diminished in size, overnight. Neither has the rugby market in Japan. Nor has the commercial base for rugby grown bigger in the south.

Think of when Bunnings came to your town or suburb and the local hardware stores gradually began to disappear. Bunnings didn’t get everything right – heck, they couldn’t even decide whether the onion goes on top of the bread or the sausage – and for many, Bunnings was resisted. That is, until they weren’t.

This is the situation Australian rugby finds itself in; Rugby Australia equivalent to a mum and pop store, armed with little more than a promise of a Wallaby jersey, a fraying-at-the-seams Giteau Law, and a looming private equity injection of funds, fighting off the mega-sized, overseas raiders.

Frustration at Australian rugby’s plight tends to manifest itself these days in calls for the Giteau Law to be scrapped. In recent days, ex-Wallabies Drew Mitchell and Mat Rogers chimed in, with Mitchell saying, “I can’t imagine being a Wallabies coach and knowing that you’re not going into the World Cup having the squad you wanted because your own board is putting limitations on you.”

Rogers meanwhile, called for Australian rugby to adopt a soccer model, to create “battle-hardened players who are ready to compete at high-level week in and week out”.

Unfortunately, their insistence that Australia’s best players can be set loose, then at intervals, plucked from various overseas locations and the Wallabies made more competitive, doesn’t align with the thinking of those who are actually accountable; Australia’s professional coaches and administrators.

Ireland and the Crusaders are two prime examples where a focus on cohesion and development of a high TWI (Team Work Index) are seen as critical success indicators. Perhaps Dave Rennie might think differently if he was allowed to call his players into extended camps and develop TWI. But which overseas clubs are going to agree to that?

Rogers’ idea that Australian soccer is a blueprint for rugby’s success is a curiously popular view. International football is a far more competitive beast than rugby, but consider for a moment, Australia’s record since becoming a member of FIFA and eligible for World Cups in 1966.

Including the upcoming event in Qatar, Australia has qualified six times in 15 attempts. There have been two wins from 16 matches, and the Socceroos have never qualified for a quarter final.

By contrast, the Wallabies have won two of nine World Cups, been runner-up twice and, no matter what sceptics might believe, courtesy of a friendly draw, have a good shot at a semi-final, again next year.

Australia’s domestic football A-League is competitive and enjoyable, but is hidden away on Paramount’s streaming service. Back in May this year, the grand-final between Western United and Melbourne City drew 22,495 spectators to AAMI Park.

Imagine that; a Super Rugby AU final between the Reds and Waratahs drawing 22,000 fans? The derision and self-loathing would know no end. Is this really something for Australian rugby to aspire to?

A Professional Footballer’s Association (PFA) study on 2021 found that A League salaries had dropped since the previous survey conducted in 2018, and that average salaries were below that offered in the leagues in South Korea and India.

This should come as no surprise. Because of Australia’s relatively small population, and the incumbent domination of AFL and NRL, the commercial market is too small to support internationally competitive, fully professional leagues in soccer and rugby; even more so when potential marquee players reside overseas.

The flow-on effect is broadcasting deals commensurate with the standing of the competition. Just when you think the squeeze on England’s rugby premiership limits the opportunity for Australians to gain overseas contracts, the value of a domestic competition to broadcasters would still be diminished – not because more Australian players would go overseas, but because the best players would.

Abandonment of the Giteau Law would effectively represent a transfer of wealth from the national union to the players, their managers and their overseas employers. A good outcome for them, but in truth, another way of Australian rugby attempting to shrink its way to success. Good luck with that.

Another common argument is that because what Australia now has doesn’t work, it might as well try something new; “things couldn’t be any worse”. I’d venture that’s not a proposal that has been put to any reputable board for approval and been embraced, without there being some evidence that an alternative is clearly articulated and has a prospect of success.

The fundamentals haven’t changed. Australia and New Zealand participate in a global market for players and broadcast and sponsorship dollars that, by nature of their relative size, they are ill-equipped to remain competitive in.

New Zealand faces significant challenges but its domestic situation is superior to Australia’s, by dint of its historic provincial-based competitions, rugby talent being spread fairly equitably through that network, and an entrenched rugby culture helping to diminish the threat from cashed-up competing sports.

By contrast, Australia’s domestic structure is woefully unfit for purpose as a cohesive element for Australian rugby as a whole.

As ever, it is this piece that needs solving. With money, yes, and with goodwill and a willingness for people in the game to set aside historic, parochial frameworks.

Not only is Australia’s house small and impoverished, it is in dire need of renovation. In that light, it is hard to imagine how abandoning the Giteau Law, Australia releasing its best players and shrinking its revenue base, improves the situation.

The weekend also saw another round of action from the women’s World Cup, with England coming out on top in a fiercely contested contest against France, 13-7, New Zealand too strong for Wales 56-12, and Australia losing both hookers to red cards on the way to edging out Scotland 14-12.

In a competition where kicking skills have been questionable, Lori Cramer effectively won the match for Australia with her two perfectly struck conversions. Readers with daughters aged between 12 and 14 know exactly what they should be doing every night after school/work; the first woman to regularly punt 50 metres and routinely nail sideline conversions will be a global superstar of the game, able to name their own price.

Also named yesterday were Mark Nawaqanitawase, Ben Donaldson and Sam Talakai who, along with Langi Gleeson and Jock Campbell are the five uncapped players in Australia’s spring touring squad to the UK.

All except Talakai, plus front-rowers Matt Gibbon and Tom Robertson, and lock Ned Hanigan, have been rewarded for strong performances during Australia A’s successful tour of Japan, which concluded with Friday night’s entertaining 52-48 win to the home side.

The tour will also see the return of Michael Hooper, albeit not as captain, while notable omissions were Kurtley Beale, Suli Vunivalu and Harry Wilson.

Interestingly, only two overseas-based players, Will Skelton and Bernard Foley, were selected. It would seem that coach Dave Rennie is less concerned about the mechanics of the Giteau Law as he is about selecting the available players he believes will do a job for Australia.