If only, Quick Hands, if only . This will be remembered for generations as New South Wales rugby's - indeed Australian rugby's - great lost opportunity to correct all that was wrong with the code. And rugby administrators were in an incredibly powerful negotiating position to force young Israel to go where he was told. After all it's not as if he had any other options - other than say going back to almost any rugby league club anywhere or earning truck loads in European rugby or semi-trailer loads in Japanese rugby. Why should he have been given the right to choose which club he affiliated with, other than the fact that every other player has that right?
And it's not as if this is the first time that those greedy bastards at Camperdown have allowed already established star players to join their club. For a start there was Berrick Barnes. and before that there was . Well anyway there must have been others in previous decades.
Many astute commentators on these pages have pointed out that even if he wouldn't have necessarily been available to play with Penrith he could have attended a few junior clinics out there and signed some autographs or helped out on the barbie, or whatever. Instead of not playing any games with Sydney Uni he could have been not playing any games with Penrith or not playing any games with Parramatta, thus triggering the great renaissance of rugby in Sydney. Hopefully it's not too late to implement the Israel Folau Draft and direct him where to go.
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