Genia to the Force?

[Slim 293]

Oh no no no no no...

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spo...ll-up-in-the-air/story-e6frg7o6-1226344123048

Genia's Reds deal still up in the air

IN a new twist to an extraordinary tale, Wallabies halfback Will Genia's deal with the Queensland Reds is believed to be still up in the air.

In a whirlwind four days, Genia reneged on a $550,000-a-year offer to join the Western Force to stay with the Reds for $400,000. But it is understood that the contract Genia signed with the Reds on Monday was conditional upon the salary cap increasing from $4.1m to $4.8m, which at the moment is unlikely to happen.

When The Australian contacted Reds chief executive Jim Carmichael last night, he was not prepared to talk about recruitment and retention.

The salary cap is a key component of the negotiation between the ARU and the Rugby Union Players Association over the collective bargaining agreement.

The ARU and RUPA have reached a stalemate, which means the current CBA is likely to be rolled over. In this event, the salary cap would remain at $4.1m this year and be reduced to $3.9m next year.

If the CBA is rolled over, the Reds would have to reopen negotiations with Genia because his contract would be non-compliant with protocols.

It would be difficult for the Reds to offer Genia $400,000 a year and keep their player payments under a $4.1m salary cap.

If the Reds honoured the deal, it would almost certainly mean they would have to release other players, possibly five-eighth Quade Cooper.

Cooper would expect to be paid at least as much as Genia, if not more. This means the Reds would be spending almost a quarter of their salary cap on just two players.

Having lost Genia, the Force is expected to chase Cooper, but there are also whispers the Melbourne Rebels could be interested in him to replace departed Englishman Danny Cipriani.

The Reds' other option would be to try to put pressure on the ARU to increase Genia's top-up to make up the difference if they paid him less than $400,000.

However, the ARU would not negotiate a top-up for Genia until his Super Rugby deal was finalised.

If the Queensland deal falls through, Genia may look at options in Europe or Japan.

Genia agreed to terms with the Force last Thursday and told Reds coach Ewen McKenzie he was leaving after their win against the Blues in Auckland last Friday night. Queensland - in breach of ARU protocols - issued a media release last Saturday night announcing Genia was leaving to join the Force.

It is understood Reds management met Genia, who had not yet signed with the Force, last Sunday and persuaded him to change his mind.

The news came as a shock to the Force, which was banking on the recruitment of Genia to ensure captain and openside flanker David Pocock remained in Perth; now there is a chance he will go to the Brumbies...

 

[No4918]

That would almost certainly have been a condition of the Force offer as well. $550k of $ 4.1 mill would not be on.

Hopefully this saga encourages the ARU to pull their finger out and approve the new CBA. 4.1 to 3.9 will not be enough.

 

[Scotty]

The ARU's new protocol is not to negotiate top ups until the club contract is signed. I wonder how this works when there are these get out clauses? Surely Genia, now signed, can push the ARU for his top up and if it isn't good enough then tell hem he is going overseas and use the clause to get out of the reds contract?

The ARU have given themselves a lot of power with this new protocol. They could pay players whatever they wanted or nothing at all. Top up money should instead be evenly distributed to the clubs for use on Australian eligible players only.

 

[RedsHappy]

Scotty, the fact that the agreement re any new salary cap structure has still not been signed by the ARU and the RUPA, yet players are negotiating new deals that require all this conditionality as to what the cap might or might not permit, is but one factor that amply highlights what a mess the whole Aus rugby structure is in.

THe ARU intrudes hugely into what S15 players can be paid in total, but consistently states that it cannot intrude to remove poor managements and leaders from franchises (which rely on the ARU's funding) that under perform in playing, S15, and economic outcomes year after year, a passivity that in part has led to the relative underperformance of much of Australian rugby over the last decade.

The franchises in effect thus become accountable for performance as business and community sports bodies to nobody at all, unless they are on the brink of bankruptcy and then require rescuing from a disastrous position by the ARU.

 

[Bruce Ross]

THe ARU ... consistently states that it cannot intrude to remove poor managements and leaders from franchises ... that under perform in playing ... and economic outcomes year after year

I think you might agree, RH, that this demonstrates a very prudent and wise approach on the part of JO'N and his princelings. Some of the legendary leaders of business have adhered to the mantra, "I wouldn't ask any man to do something I couldn't do myself." Consistent with this it would be hypocritical for Australian Rugby's senior body to penalise underperformance and poor management among the subsidiaries.
.

 

[Cave Dweller]

Look like they are playing musical chairs. You gain a key player another moves etc etc like a Merry Go Round. But surely the salary cap is effective as it allow a more fare share of key players. So teams got to make a decision whether they will go or keep a extra star player or let them go and opt for 3 or 4 promising youngsters. I believe that is how depth is also created.

 

[Karl]

What a circus.

The problem is you just get to a point where you don't care anymore. I feel like "whatever" now with this Genia saga. Just do something, make it stick and lets deal with whatever that is.

 

[RedsHappy]

I think you might agree, RH, that this demonstrates a very prudent and wise approach on the part of JO'N and his princelings. Some of the legendary leaders of business have adhered to the mantra, "I wouldn't ask any man to so something I couldn't do myself." Consistent with this it would be hypocritical for Australian Rugby's senior body to penalise underperformance and poor management among the subsidiaries.
.

Bruce...I think I have found the right ARU response email address for me to urgently redress the serious (indeed possibly defamatory) deficiency in my statement above...it's: apologiesformissingtheconsistencyofprinciplesapplied@rugby.com.au

You're so right: it's not a problem at all, it's more a logical consistency of approach. Always just bashing off posts too quickly.

 

[ChargerWA]

The super clubs should just do a Melbourne Storm. Fuck the ARU unless they are going to help in player retention, as opposed to hinder.

 

[RedsHappy]

Look like they are playing musical chairs. You gain a key player another moves etc etc like a Merry Go Round. But surely the salary cap is effective as it allow a more fare share of key players. So teams got to make a decision whether they will go or keep a extra star player or let them go and opt for 3 or 4 promising youngsters. I believe that is how depth is also created.

CD: There is no perfect policy here, but there is an alternative view to the one you express above, and the one you express is indeed the view that most influences our ARU's thinking on enforced salary caps etc.

The alternative view is that this intrusion into a free market for talent ultimately just creates institutionalised mediocrity of outcomes like a kind of socialist state where all the restaurants with 30 tables must pay no more than $XX in wages irrespective of the nature and calibre of what they deliver to customers. Imagine the consequences of that policy - would it definitely lead to better restaurants overall just because effectively such 30 table joints could only pay their head chef the same as every other such joint? I don't think so, in fact it clearly would not.

My alternative view is that any franchise should be able to pay players exactly what it wanted to in a free market setting. BUT, the ARU could and would revoke a State RU's right to use the code if that State RU exceeded a certain $ limit on its operating deficit over say 2 years, and/or did not make a minimal operating profit over say 3 years (this to be fairly adjusted for new RUs), and the same would apply to other key code-success-measure KPIs in terms of all-grades rugby player registrations, community rugby performance, rugby penetration in schools, etc. Thus, the only control the ARU would effectively have over the franchises was in relation the strategic calibre of their delivered performances as franchised businesses and community sports organisations and if any franchise did not demonstrably and measurably perform over a designated period, it's franchise 'license' would be automatically revoked and new management and directors appointed that could achieve better outcomes. This would ensure over time that RU board and managers and coaches know they must attain and sustain high performance standards for rugby in order to hold their jobs and prestigious positions. [This is manifestly not the case today where our State RU boards know all they have to do to stay in place is (a) generate a bunch of eloquent but sort of plausible excuses as to why they never achieve anything much and (b) never quite go bankrupt (getting close is OK though).]

This radically different model allows and incentivises very well managed RU franchises to build more and more solid, long-term successful operations and afford the very best players (who then gain the $ security to stay in Aus rugby), whilst less developed franchises must figure out how to ultimately build successful teams with perhaps less stars but with an obsessive objective to build successful professional playing outcomes and win titles and such like - just as the Reds recently did with very tight player cost controls from 2009-11 and, until mid-2010, very few known 'stars' in the playing roster. And just what the ACTRU look like doing now with White in a similar manner. (In fact, to rebuild a franchise, I'd argue that recent history shows that these success models with few or no 'stars' are the best route to developmental success, PROVIDED that the coaching staff and business management is of top quality alongside.)

I believe the idea that central 'salary caps' assure multiple financially viable franchises as the franchises are too incompetent to achieve sound economic outcomes for themselves without such controls, is mythical and just aids in building a bunch of homogenous mediocrities with relatively weak managements as nanny ARU kind of tells them what to pay for their players but does not insist they are good enough to develop success for their teams and the code as a whole.

 

[Cave Dweller]

Oh so there is a cap to how much a player can be offered and not just one huge total to which you must fit your players in?

 

[Lee Grant]

Genia agreed to terms with the Force last Thursday and told Reds coach Ewen McKenzie he was leaving after their win against the Blues in Auckland last Friday night. Queensland - in breach of ARU protocols - issued a media release last Saturday night announcing Genia was leaving to join the Force.

It is understood Reds management met Genia, who had not yet signed with the Force, last Sunday and persuaded him to change his mind..

My mail is that the timing of this is exactly right. It was Link who got to him on Sunday and changed his mind.

IMO a move to another Oz franchise would have been a disaster for the Reds from a future recruitment point of view, and, in that regard, it would have been better for them if he were going offshore.
.

 

[emuarse]

Well this is my last post on this thread.
Ginea saw the dollars and was attracted like a moth to a light bulb, with his agent pushing him along.
After making the decision, he started to go through 'buyers remorse', and when mates like Ioane (ex Force) told him how he declined a million dollar plus offer to play in Japan to stay with the Reds, & Cooper probably said how sad it would be to break up a successful partnership, plus Link assuring him that he would remain heavily involved in strategies next year, then he probably consciously felt morally bound to stay with the Reds.
And I think that once he made that decision, he was a very relieved person.
Even a blind man can read the writing on the wall, when its engraved.

 

[The Red Baron]

Emu makes a good point about Diggers. I daresay that it would have been Diggers with the most to say to Will about club loyalty and knocking back the big dollars. Ewen probably phrased it in a way that made re-signing irresistible. Overall a good result for the Reds, but I can't help but wonder how susceptible Genia was to peer pressure as a teen.

 

[redstragic]

"The media would have you believe there are conspiracy theories and hidden agendas intertwined within their Hollywood script. But the truth is that Will made one of the few massive decisions he will make during his life, and valued loyalty and remaining in Queensland over other factors."

http://m.smh.com.au/rugby-union/uni...-made-on-or-off-the-phone-20120502-1xzeh.html

Link talking about The weekend. Reading this makes me believe this new
Director role is a good move, Link will be close enough to the team yet removed enough so these negotiations aren't taking too much out of preparation time for games.

 

[Bruce Ross]

Link talking about The weekend. Reading this makes me believe this new Director role is a good move, Link will be close enough to the team yet removed enough

I concur, rt. Already you can see dividends from giving Link time to ruminate and cogitate:

"There is a confidence returning to the Reds that you can sense is giving us more optimism."

Confidence can do that to you. But how many people have ever consciously perceived the causative link between confidence and optimism?
.

 

[RedsHappy]

Emu makes a good point about Diggers. I daresay that it would have been Diggers with the most to say to Will about club loyalty and knocking back the big dollars. Ewen probably phrased it in a way that made re-signing irresistible. Overall a good result for the Reds, but I can't help but wonder how susceptible Genia was to peer pressure as a teen.

I know others have touched on this, but the terrific aspect of Genia's 'reversal' is that, as he himself has said, values, loyalty, committing again to a culture and spirit that has been good for you, etc. do matter in a person's life and can support a happier, though perhaps less $ lucrative, outcome in one's chosen career. So, Genia's gone up in my estimations.

Many young and highly talented people I know find this out only many years later when the 'happiness and enjoyment' option has evaporated, and they only have the greed factories they're in to rely upon.

 

[brokendown]

so,why didn't he consider those values,loyalty,culture etc,BEFORE agreeing to go to the force?

 

[RedsHappy]

so,why didn't he consider those values,loyalty,culture etc,BEFORE agreeing to go to the force?

That's a fair cop bd, but I'm not quite as judgemental as you seem to be. These are young guys, inexperienced in business, their new income potential is staggeringly bigger than it was just a few years back, there are ego factors involved, Pocock was no doubt persuasive, and the player managers who 'engineer' the deals for them are quite ruthless. It's forgivable IMO to be torn between worlds where (a) huge income and (b) good but not as great income + 'happier', are contrasted and the person involved is pulled back and forth.

And people make mistakes, Genia shouldn't have committed to go to the Force, then changed his mind and given the Force a mess at the end of it all. But, he did finally change his mind, and he explained why quite humbly and made no flimsy excuses for doing so.

For me, things can be evolved in very imperfect ways, but still come out quite admirably in the end.

 

[redstragic]

I concur, rt. Already you can see dividends from giving Link time to ruminate and cogitate:

"There is a confidence returning to the Reds that you can sense is giving us more optimism."

Confidence can do that to you. But how many people have ever consciously perceived the causative link between confidence and optimism?
.

Have to say I read that confidence thing as Link saying "thank christ the Fainga'a's are fit" As to the first point, the coach seems to have a lot on their plate in Australian s15 sides, splitting the role will be good thing as long as it does not resort in idle hands doing the devils work.

Imagine having to negotiate with 5 or 6 player managers as well as coach the team and keep everyone at HQ in the loop and deal with the media? Be a constant shit fight.