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Opinion
I’m going to say something that I know is going to tick off a lot of rugby union fans. Despite being an avid sports lover and very active on social media, I rarely hear anything about rugby union.
I do my best to follow what is happening with the Wallaroos and the Australian women’s sevens team, but rugby does not appear to have the cut-through that it did a decade ago.
The only time I really hear about rugby union is when there is a big announcement (positive or negative) or when ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys opens his mouth to make a crack at the sport.
And the latter seems to be happening quite a bit at the moment.
(Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan is smart. He knows that his snipes are working. He is like a fisherman. Every time he puts the bait in, V’landys bites and the ‘code war’ dominates the conversation for the next week.
It’s also not just V’landys biting, but the broader rugby league community, including the media.
We saw it when Joseph Suaalii signed with Rugby Australia and V’landys suggested the Roosters young gun was taking ‘cheap money’.
We saw it again when it was announced that Roger Tuivasa-Sheck would be returning to the New Zealand Warriors in 2024. In what should have been only a glorious day in the history of the Warriors, with one of their prodigal sons returning, V’landys couldn’t help himself.
He suggested that rugby union change its name to ‘rugby boomerang’ because players always come back.
McLennan just keeps making comments because he knows it keeps his sport relevant to the wider world outside of rusted-on rugby fans. I wonder if rugby league has considered just ignoring it.
To be honest, I find the behaviour by both V’landys and McLennan to be extremely childish.
It also reflects upon their leadership style, which sees both these men intent on being in the headlines as much as possible.
This is fascinating from a governance perspective. If you think about organisations you are close to, passionate about, or interested in, you can very rarely name their board members (unless that organisation is in crisis).
While the role of the board is to guide the strategic direction of the organisation, it is the role of the CEO to manage the day to day running of the organisation.
We rarely see Andrew Abdo or Andy Marinos in the media and to me this is problematic. The CEO should be the face of the organisation, not the chair or the board.
When you think about AFL, you immediately think about Gillon McLachlan, the CEO. This is not the case in rugby league or rugby union.
I just don’t understand why this issue is one that V’landys needs to comment on over and over again. Let’s be completely honest – for rugby union to have a major impact on the NRL player market, they would need to sign Nicho Hynes, Payne Haas, Cameron Munster, James Tedesco, Harry Grant, Junior Paulo, Nathan Cleary and Patrick Carrigan in one swoop.
Rugby Australia cannot do this. They do not have the money.
This week Rugby Australia announced a return to surplus at their 2022 Annual General Meeting. The surplus announced was $8.2 million, which turned around a $27 million deficit from two years ago.
This is huge news but it certainly doesn’t mean they have millions of dollars to spend on signing rugby league players and if they did, I would question their governance given that overspending on contracts was part of the reason the sport found itself in deficit.
(Photo by Oisin Keniry – World Rugby/World Rugby via Getty Images)
Recently, V’landys also said he wanted NRL clubs to actively target Wallabies players and to give teams an incentive to do so.
Rugby union is living rent free in his brain.
Would that be the best use of NRL money? Or could it be invested in grassroots, the women’s game or incentivising clubs to develop their own juniors. That brain bubble seems consistent with his general approach which is to throw an idea into the ether, test the thinking and then never come back to it if the feedback is negative.
The reality is that rugby league has never been better. The quality of the footy is outstanding, average crowd numbers have increased as have viewer numbers and the competition is wide open. At this stage we have no idea who is going to win the premiership.
So why is the focus on player comings and goings from rugby union? In my view, we need to let rugby do its thing. It may result in the loss of a couple of players.
But I have every confidence in rugby league and it’s going to take a lot more than the loss of a couple of players to slow this sport down. I just wish the chairman shared that same confidence.