ARU contracting process - how could it be improved?

[Scoey]

Does anyone know anything about how Cricket Australia handle their contracting? I assume it would be an even bigger nightmare. They have domestic and international tournaments and also multiple versions of the game where some players only play one or two versions and others play all of them.

Could we learn anything form what they do? They have players that nick off to the IPL in the "off season" to earn a heap of cash etc. So surely they have encountered most of the difficulties that the ARU have?

 

[I like to watch]

.....Could we learn anything form what they do? They have players that nick off to the IPL in the "off season" to earn a heap of cash etc. So surely they have encountered most of the difficulties that the ARU have?

No, I don't believe they have ever had to conduct negotiations with QC (Quade Cooper).
Let's put this in perspective.Australian Rugby has been professional for 15 or more years.
How many players have been contracted over this time? hundreds?
This is uncharted territory.
There is no need to re design anything now that he is gone.They will contract another couple of hundred without this debacle being repeated.

 

[Scotty]

No, I don't believe they have ever had to conduct negotiations with QC (Quade Cooper).
Let's put this in perspective.Australian Rugby has been professional for 15 or more years.
How many players have been contracted over this time? hundreds?
This is uncharted territory.
There is no need to re design anything now that he is gone.They will contract another couple of hundred without this debacle being repeated.

Really? QC (Quade Cooper) is the only issue?

There have been several contract debacles in recent memory from the ARU. None that I can remember, ever, from the ACB.

 

[Scoey]

No, I don't believe they have ever had to conduct negotiations with QC (Quade Cooper).
Let's put this in perspective.Australian Rugby has been professional for 15 or more years.
How many players have been contracted over this time? hundreds?
This is uncharted territory.
There is no need to re design anything now that he is gone.They will contract another couple of hundred without this debacle being repeated.

Come off it man! It's plainly obvious you have a beef with Quade but this thread has nothing to do with him. Deadset, doesn't the constant sniping and bagging Quade get boring for you? I gotta say, it's getting a tad tedious with me.

The ARU contracting system could do with some improvement - this is evident to most. This thread is about discussing ways they could go about it. I think whatever CA are doing could be very relevant to this discussion.

 

[Lindommer]

Sounds like Pat Howard'd be a good bloke to get on the podslam soon, in the current environment his experience at cricket'd be very intriguing.

 

[I like to watch]

Really, which debacles am I forgetting?
The ACB has been the only game in town since Packer.
The IPL is only 4 years old, but they have agreed to co exist rather than compete for talent.
So not really a good comparison.

 

[Braveheart81]

Does anyone know anything about how Cricket Australia handle their contracting? I assume it would be an even bigger nightmare. They have domestic and international tournaments and also multiple versions of the game where some players only play one or two versions and others play all of them.

Could we learn anything form what they do? They have players that nick off to the IPL in the "off season" to earn a heap of cash etc. So surely they have encountered most of the difficulties that the ARU have?

Cricket Australia has created a points system to cover the three formats of the game (i.e. greater weighting towards test cricket) and allocates points to players based on their involvement and performance within each category. This then creates a ranking system to determine the value of each player to CA. Contracts are then awarded to the top x number of players on a sliding scale of remuneration.

The ARU has attempted to do a similar thing in ranking the importance of players and then offering contracts on that basis. It is obviously more difficult to quantify importance to a team in rugby than it is in cricket.

When the IPL was first mooted it was considered a big threat by the various cricket boards. They quickly realised there was too much money on offer and that it was better just to compromise and make it part of the annual calendar than trying to force players not to play if they wanted to continue playing for their countries.

The biggest challenge for the ARU is the fact that Super Rugby contracts are pretty lucrative in themselves and form a large part of the salary for Wallabies as well. In cricket, state contracts are chicken feed compared to have a CA contract and playing for the Australian team.

 

[I like to watch]

Come off it man! It's plainly obvious you have a beef with Quade but this thread has nothing to do with him. Deadset, doesn't the constant sniping and bagging Quade get boring for you? I gotta say, it's getting a tad tedious with me.

The ARU contracting system could do with some improvement - this is evident to most. This thread is about discussing ways they could go about it. I think whatever CA are doing could be very relevant to this discussion.

I raised him, as he is the only problem that this system has not been able to resolve,
I know that Genia complained about ARU tardiness in completing the process but I believe that had more to do with JON too busy etc rather than the process.

 

[Scoey]

I raised him, as he is the only problem that this system has not been able to resolve,
I know that Genia complained about ARU tardiness in completing the process but I believe that had more to do with JON too busy etc rather than the process.

The "only" problem? Nope, can't agree with that. Cooper, Genia, Pocock are three that I can think off straight off the bat. Two of those are Wallaby captains. If it takes 6+ months to re-contract your National sides captains, remembering this is 6+ months on top of the negotiating time already spent negotiating with the S15 franchises then there is room for improvement with the process. If the delay with Sanchez was that JON was "too busy" then that's a travesty.

 

[Braveheart81]

I really think most of the contracting delays were caused by the tightening of the pursestrings.

If the ARU had plenty of money and the value of contracts continued to rise I'm sure all the contracts would have been signed much faster.

 

[I like to watch]

The "only" problem? Nope, can't agree with that. Cooper, Genia, Pocock are three that I can think off straight off the bat. Two of those are Wallaby captains. If it takes 6+ months to re-contract your National sides captains, remembering this is 6+ months on top of the negotiating time already spent negotiating with the S15 franchises then there is room for improvement with the process. If the delay with Sanchez was that JON was "too busy" then that's a travesty.

Sanchez has signed I believe.Do you really believe Pocock is going anywhere else?
I don't think you can name even one player that has refused to sign on as a result of this system(apart from the obvious).

 

[Scoey]

Sanchez has signed I believe.Do you really believe Pocock is going anywhere else?
I don't think you can name even one player that has refused to sign on as a result of this system(apart from the obvious).

Is that your benchmark? Players that refuse to sign? The contracting process (read: pretty much any process) can be improved and this thread is about discussing ways it might be improved. It makes me wonder why you even started reading this thread to be honest.

 

[Scotty]

Really, which debacles am I forgetting?
The ACB has been the only game in town since Packer.
The IPL is only 4 years old, but they have agreed to co exist rather than compete for talent.
So not really a good comparison.

Not a good comparison, but you were happy to imply the only difference between the two was QC (Quade Cooper).

 

[Scotty]

Really, which debacles am I forgetting?
The ACB has been the only game in town since Packer.
The IPL is only 4 years old, but they have agreed to co exist rather than compete for talent.
So not really a good comparison.

I don't know the full details of these, but I'll throw a few out there:

Chris Latham (at the time close to the world's best fullback and one of only two experienced backs in the Wallabies) gets offered around half his previous top-up figure and therefore goes overseas. He wanted to stay. At the same time Lote Tuqiri has some serious form issues and is being paid $1M per annum.

Not being able to re-sign George Smith, a year out from the world cup. That was a fail for Australian Rugby.

Genia and Pocock's contract negotiations dragging on for an eternity.

Rocky Elsom's negotiations dragging on for an eternity.

Vickerman - didn't he get a contract despite not playing for 6 months?

Nathan Sharpe getting offered a rookie only contract a few years ago, but now being paid (allegedly) multiple times the match payment of other players.

Higginbotham - ARU not coming to the party, forcing Scott to move to the Rebels to get appropriate money.

Having a situation where the ARU was spending millions more on Tahs players than any other franchise due to imported leaguies (Rogers, Sailor, Tuqiri, Tahu).

 

[I like to watch]

Scotty, that's just a list of where your opinion differs from the decision makers, ithey are not issues regarding processes.

Latham was 33 odd? and signed the "Superannuation contract" in UK.
He had some major injury issues in his last year in Oz as I recall

George Smith same as Latham, you can't suggest he should have been paid a premium to stay as a second stringer to Pocock?

Rock Elsoms negotiations dragging on, which time?
Remember Rocky requested an early termination to allow him to "cash in" in Europe, then he came back busted and signed on.

Vickerman is a selection issue not a process issue.

Sharpe was also a selection issue, there was no huge outcry when his contract was decreased.

Higginbotham is a victim if that's the right word of the salary cap, which is related but separate to this issue.

Paying the Mungoes top dollar again is a selection/marketing issue.
it's not a contracting process issue.

 

[Lindommer]

Having a situation where the ARU was spending millions more on Tahs players than any other franchise due to imported leaguies (Rogers, Sailor, Tuqiri, Tahu).

How many years did Sailor play for the Reds? And the Tahs? Sailor got the big money to move to rugby and the Reds, his value had dropped considerably by the time he moved south.

Correct me if I'm wrong but weren't the first league players to move to rugby in the professional era Willie Carne and Peter Ryan? Neither played for the Tahs.

 

[Scotty]

How many years did Sailor play for the Reds? And the Tahs? Sailor got the big money to move to rugby and the Reds, his value had dropped considerably by the time he moved south.

Correct me if I'm wrong but weren't the first league players to move to rugby in the professional era Willie Carne and Peter Ryan? Neither played for the Tahs.

To my knowledge Carne and Ryan didn't get big money offers to make the switch. So sailor was the only one for the reds. My point was more about there being sailor, tuqiri and Rogers at the Tahs at the same time. There is no doubt the ARU was spending a lot more on Tahs top ups at that time, and it was mainly due to imported league talent (who were all actually qlders - not that it matters).

 

[Scotty]

Scotty, that's just a list of where your opinion differs from the decision makers, ithey are not issues regarding processes.

Latham was 33 odd? and signed the "Superannuation contract" in UK.
He had some major injury issues in his last year in Oz as I recall

George Smith same as Latham, you can't suggest he should have been paid a premium to stay as a second stringer to Pocock?

Rock Elsoms negotiations dragging on, which time?
Remember Rocky requested an early termination to allow him to "cash in" in Europe, then he came back busted and signed on.

Vickerman is a selection issue not a process issue.

Sharpe was also a selection issue, there was no huge outcry when his contract was decreased.

Higginbotham is a victim if that's the right word of the salary cap, which is related but separate to this issue.

Paying the Mungoes top dollar again is a selection/marketing issue.
it's not a contracting process issue.

Latham was told by Deans he was to be selected in the wallabies despite him heading ring confirmed as going overseas by that time. Unfortunately he was injured. He was still 31 at the time.

George Smith would have been a fantastic asset to Australia's world cup campaign. I am sure you can agree with that.

Elsom and vickerman were examples of how the contracting process could get bent for certain players.

The league players was an example of how the contracting system can favour one super side over the others.

 

[Lindommer]

.....Sailor, Tuqiri and Rogers at the Tahs at the same time. There is no doubt the ARU was spending a lot more on Tahs top ups at that time, and it was mainly due to imported league talent (who were all actually Qlders - not that it matters).

Tuqiri, born in Fiji, spent as much time out of Queensland as in it. Rogers, born in Darwin, childhood mostly spent in Sydney, some secondary schooling in Queensland. They're not "all actually Qlders", they're "all actually Australians". And you're right, it doesn't matter that they're Qlders, it never does.

 

[Scotty]

I knew when I typed that bit it would be like a red rag to a bull to you. I assume you agree with the remainder of the post then?