Last time I wrote for Green and Gold Rugby I gave my thoughts on parts of the game where Europe had it over the local version. There are however, on a professional level a multitude of areas where Professional Rugby in Australia is streets ahead of our European counterparts.
My own experience of late just would not happen in Australia. I started the week off as any other, yet in the space of a week I had changed teams, moved cities, dropped down a division and been given a pay rise. 3 weeks later I’m still shaking my head at the turn of events. One of the biggest problems in European Rugby especially French and Italian Rugby is where the power lies, and that’s with the money. The face of a team is generally its President. Not a player, not the Coach but an administrator with sometimes very little idea on what makes a team of professional sports people tick. This is where the Aussie teams have it over the Europeans.
Who is the CEO of each of the Aussie franchises? I certainly have no idea and I read just about every rugby article there is each day coming out of the Aussie papers. This is the way it should be. The front office is not the place where stories should emanate from. I don’t mind Greg Growden writing a throwaway line here and there about the political jostling at the Waratahs etc, who doesn’t love a bit of gossip? However here in France it’s the president, an administrator who is the first called for a quote, who’s picture is front page and who’s power supersedes all either cause he has the money or he takes orders from the men with the money.
My particular situation is not that uncommon in France. A deal was done where the President of my new club (Bordeaux) rang the president of my old club (Bayonne) and asked whether he would be willing to release me and they’ll work out some sort of financial deal between themselves. The Bayonne president said yes and that was that. I finished training on a Monday afternoon with the team Bayonne and trained Tuesday morning with my new team in Bordeaux. At no time were myself nor the coaches of Bayonne consulted regarding this decision.
That’s the part of this that really got to me. This was not a decision made by Rugby people with Rugby brains, this was made by (to cut a long story short) a sponsor who has no patience for a 3 year plan to turn the team from a last to first place team and an administrator who will do anything to please him cause that’s where the money comes from. I sure never have HSBC, QR, Emirates or Computer Associates had any say on who is picked, bought or sold for the respective Australian teams ( I can’t bring myself to call them franchises) but here in France it’s common place. So in the end it wasn’t a decision based on my form, skills or my place in the team but simply on a whim of the money men.
In 2007 I was told by the Queensland Reds that my services were no longer required. I was a bitter and twisted as any player is in that situation is, but could respect the decision because it came from Eddie Jones. The guy knows Rugby! He lives and breathes it. He gave me things to work on, told me my strengths and weaknesses and made a thoroughly rugby based decision. F#*k them I thought at the time but now I can say fair enough. Rugby decision made by a Rugby brain.
That’s not been the case here in France for me; case in point was that the last ones to find out the deal had been done were the coaches who were mighty angry about it all and feeling powerless in the decision making process for their own team.
My situation is not isolated, one of the French players in the team recently got an offer from Biarritz, the mortal enemy of Bayonne. This guy was a heart and soul of the team type guy. He was a local boy who had played all his juniors at Bayonne. 17 years of service from the age of 10. He was the guy inconsolably crying under the goalpost last season when it seemed Bayonne had been demoted into the second division after the final game (they were saved a week later when Montaubaun went financially under). He could play too, probably the best scrummager in the team. Dynamic around the park, the Bayonne admin (not the coaches) group considered him too small, they made him an offer that just couldn’t compare to Biarritz more out of ceremony than any real desire to keep him and to the coaches horror he signed with Biarritz this week.
I can completely understand wanting to sign the best players but when you sell off the glue that keeps a team together like this guy was, it shows that the distance from office building to the Rugby field is far greater than 200m walk . It shows there is a gaping chasm between the two and if the power and decision making continues to be made by the suits and not the rugby brains then European rugby will never get to the level of our 5 Aussie teams.
A professional player in Australia knows that decisions on his future and in turn the teams future will be made by other Rugby professionals, not those who happen to sign the cheques. Life goes on and I am happy now in Bordeaux, ready to help take the team to the Top 14 and beat Bayonne and give a little tip of the hat to the admin staff up in the box after the game. That’s how it plays in my head anyway. Mmmm, yummy sour grapes.
