A big G&GR thankyou to long time regular Patrick for this guest contribution. And remember, you can submit a rugby story to G&GR via the ‘contact us’ tab at the bottom of the page.
Take it away Patrick:
Australian’s in France
In light of the reporting about an injury crisis at the Wallabies as we flew back from South Africa, I thought it would be interesting to have a quick look at our “reserve”, or a part of it, being players in France. Life being what it is, and my changing work and not having a laptop for a while, meant that I only finalised this now but with Skelton and JOC flying off (and back again, in JOC’s case), it is in fact as topical as ever.
The following Australians will feature in the Top 14 (average salary €260k, AUD 430k) this year:
- Taniela Tupou, Folau Faingaa,
- Rob Simmons, Will Skelton
- Lachie Swinton, Rob Leota, Langi Gleeson
- Joe Powell
- Jack McIntyre
- Irae Simone, Reece Hodge
- Jack Maddocks, Tom Banks, Suilasi Vinivalu
Reserves: Jordan Uelese, Silo Latu, Kane Douglas, Tom Staniforth, Reece Hewat (two hookers and three locks on the bench!!), Alex Newsome (centre/wing/FB)
I haven’t even mentioned 140kg 203cm Emmanuel Meafou, who would have been eligible to play for Australia.
But wait, there is more, France also has a second division, in which the average salary is €48k (AUD 85k), albeit with massive disparities between the two or three teams making a serious crack at the Top14 and the ones barely hanging on – Courtney Lawes and George North are widely rumoured to be the two highest paid players in Pro D2 on nearly 750kAUD each.
The Australian contingent here, which can again mount a serious team:
- Tom Ross, Efi Ma’afu,
- Sitaleki Timani, Izaak Rodda,
- Caleb Timu, Ned Hannigan, Cameron Holt (actually a lock but will be at 6 for this team)
- (9 missing)
- Jake Strachan
- Joe Wadman, Ben Tapui
- Sione Tiu, Ben O’Donnell
Reserves: Phoenix Battye, Ryan McCauley (both locks!)
Remember, this is before looking at Japan (that Folau, Kerevi, Tai Dowling, Koji Goulding, Isaac Lucas and Semisi Tupou) and England (JOC, Iki, Tom Hooper!!).
So why am I taking up your precious attention with this when tik tok calls? First, because that’s how much I love you all.
Second, because I think we have been f*£^ed at players development here for over a decade, with an honourable exception for the Brumbies, and that it is only in the last three or four years that we have started to turn a corner with the Reds getting their act together and, it seems, maybe even the ARU Tahs (and the born-again Western Force starting to look rather credible as well). So I have been a fairly vocal fan of supporting our players going to France, perhaps especially young, for a few years, where they can get a decent salary, and play literally 3 seasons of Aus rugby every two years in an intensely competitive environment.
Third, and perhaps the real reason, I think that in addition to highlighting my second point, these lists also call into question some of our “received wisdom” about Australian rugby:
- Look at how many locks there are! And note that Izaak Rodda was until this year starting for Toulouse who won the comp. A few years ago I recall a consensus that we were struggling for test-quality locks, but maybe we just screwed the ones we had?
- Look at how many hookers there are?? Again, I’m not sure any of these are better than who we have, but seriously we have turned out more hookers than the Argies!
- There are almost no halves: this suggests that we might actually lack depth in an area that has historically been one of our strengths. Matt Williams made this same point on Planetrugby (https://www.planetrugby.com/news/matt-williams-joe-schmidts-bad-coaching-decisions-cost-wallabies-the-british-and-irish-lions-series) a few weeks after I started drafting this.
- There are quite a few FBs, 5 depending on how strict one is. Can anyone remember when KB was considered our best FB and for years after we could not settle on anyone.
- Unfortunately, there is a critical lack of props. I mentioned above my being a fan of sending our young players to France, but for me this is most important for our props, and yet ironically we have sent less props than almost any other position!!
I think we need to take a trick from South Africa, and use overseas clubs strategically as part of our development pathways: France for the younger, Japan for the older. I think it should be a standard pathway for young props in particular.
To be clear, I don’t suggest for a second that we should send all players that way. But if an unproven 17 year old is being offered currently $85k at a super club, to play concretely 3 or 5 matches a year, or $250k at a league club, why would we not also want on the table $150k at a ProD2 club where he will get 40 matches of elite rugby in two years, training with a squad of 45+ players and get to soak up the Southern France vibes?
Finally, RA seem to be once again flush, so I would strongly suggest we invest massively with our young coaching and development talent and do the same thing with them: send them to France as well, where there are a couple dozen head coach and 50 odd senior coach roles and 150 odd development roles (S&C, skills, etc), and they will get paid more??
I’m pretty sure many here will disagree so by all means let loose in the comments – people on this site have changed my mind before so go for it! I am particularly interested in thoughts around
- With South Africa having long abandoned the national league as a criteria for selection, and NZ starting to question it, should we try and adopt a more strategic approach to managing a pipeline of say 10-15 “top prospects” each year, including trying to help some of them get to France?
- Why does it work so well for South Africa?
- Will NZ follow suit?
- Why do we have so many locks, so many hookers, and so few props over there?
Thanks for reading.
Patrick.
