Gregan v JON

[wamberal]

I am pretty sure that Cosgrove has stepped down. But a board comprising people with the rugby background of Eales, Hawker, Robinson, and Gregan can surely be trusted to act in the best interests of the game overall.

 

[I like to watch]

I do not miss the point at all. Do you really think that a "slightly smaller deal" would have been doable? Of course it would not. Even if it had been, which games could be shown on FTA? Only games from the eastern seaboard? Only Saturday nights? Be specific, that is the only way to grapple with the complexities.

It should also be remembered that the ARU did not negotiate the Foxtel deal, it was SANZAR. No way the Kiwi's or the Saffers were going to accept less so that Oz FTA could cherry pick games for their coverage

 

[Inside Shoulder]

We should start from the presumption that the ARU actually does know what it is doing, that the constraints are real, that the possibilities of picking and choosing which games should go on FTA before the season starts (every season of the tv contract, incidentally - how would that work?) and then adjusting the costs to the two different broadcasters are just fantasyland stuff.

The game is now professional, the only way it will survive at the elite level is to get optimal funding from television rights, and the only way to do that is to sell the whole competition as a package. The ARU has managed to get a highlights package onto FTA, that is one step forward.

Why should we start from that "presumption"? They have no money despite the lucrative deals you speak of.
They neglect the very heart and soul of the game - the grass roots.
The suggestion the game is professional is farcical - for about 120 players it is professional for the many thousands of other players, parents, coaches and officials it is amateur - in fact its worse than amateur: it costs money to play/officiate/coach it!
No one stops to question the basis and purpose of the ARU - what is it? I contend that its role if to foster the GAME. The game is the game most, if not all, of us played its not the Twitter fuelled stratosphere....
The true stakeholders, we the people, have zero say in what happens to the game at any level.
The game is withering on the vine in my area - which most would think is a rugby stronghold - the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney: from Watsons Bay to La Perouse there will be 2 under 14 teams. There will be no team in the Shire from what I understand.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

George Gregan owes rugby fans an apology

On the face of it, George Gregan is a splendid addition as the players’ representative on the ARU board. But this is only a part of the story about the appointment. The bright side. There is a dark side as well that needs to be confronted.
Gregan is the most capped player in the history of international rugby, with 139 Tests played. He is arguably Australia’s most charismatic player in the professional era.
He was the gifted halfback who help to mastermind the Wallabies wonderful triumph in the 1999 Rugby World Cup tournament. There were the Super Rugby triumphs, too, of the ACT Brumbies.
In their golden era they were the best provincial side in the world, and far and away the smartest.
And then there is the iconic moment of ’Gregan’s Tackle’ on Jeff Wilson which saved a Test for the Wallabies against the All Blacks at the Sydney Football Stadium in the first night Test played by the two rivals.
This tackle is now part of the folklore of Australian rugby, along with Topo Rodiquez’s masssive hit on Hika Reid at Eden Park in the third Test of the 1986 Bledisloe Cup series that was won by Alan Jones’ Wallabies.
Since Gregan finished up with the Wallabies, he has played rugby in Japan and has created a successful business with a coffee shop franchise.
In his story of the Gregan appointment to the ARU, joining three other Wallabies in John Eales, Brett Robinson and Michael Hawker, the constant apologist for ‘player power’, The Australian‘s Wayne Smith suggests that the CEO of the ARU, John O’Neill needs to “brace himself for a revival of the Georgian era.”
This brings us to the dark side of the Gregan appointment.
Gregan was one of the ring leaders, along with the then Wallaby captain Phil Kearns, the All Blacks captain Sean Fitzpatrick and Zinzan Brooke, and the Springboks captain Francois Pienaar in trying to take the game away from the IRB, the ARU, the NZRU and the SARU.
I was at the Sydney Test between the Wallabies and the All Blacks in 1995 after the Rugby World Cup tournament, when Kearns made his disquieting speech to the fans asking them to understand why the players were going down a path that seemed difficult for fans to understand.
I stood with Sir Brian Lochore, the manager of the All Blacks, an icon of the game. He looked across the field and in the saddest of voices wondered out loud if he and the rest of us had watched our last Bledisloe Cup Test.
An hour or so later the All Blacks, with the exception of Jonah Lomu, Jeff Wilson and Josh Kronfeld, signed contracts to play in a rugby circus being promoted by Kerry Packer.
Packer was furious with the Murdochs for their Super League play. The Murdochs were putting together a Super Rugby package (the Super 12) to provide more sports content for their pay television company, Fox Sports.
After the All Blacks signed up, they attended a special Bledisloe Cup dinner which hosted captains from all the eras. It was one of the most distressing nights I have ever experienced. I noticed Kronfeld wandering around, as if he’d been hit by a baseball bat. None of the other All Blacks would even talk to him.
A number of the captains told me that they had spoken to many of the players in an attempt to talk them out of their rebellion. One captain, an erudite gentleman, was so upset by the intransigence of the players he told me that they were as immovable as “shit on a blanket.”
Sources told me that Kearns and Gregan and others put tremendous pressure on younger players in the Wallabies to go along with them. Eales was not allowed into meetings with the team. This great man, on and off the field, was derided as ‘old yellow back.’
This week Jock Hobbs was given a hero’s funeral in Wellington. Hobbs was the NZRU man who had to travel up and down New Zealand trying to sign players up for the Super 12 tournament. The hostility of senior All Blacks was immense. Brooke threatened to smash Wilson in a ruck if they ever played against each other again.
Hobbs was described by the Eales equivalent in NZ rugby, Richie McCaw as “the man who saved New Zealand rugby.” It is the contention of many who knew him that the effort severely damaged Hobbs health.
In New Zealand the wounds were healed by Fitzpatrick leaving the country and rebels like Brooke being given no role to play in New Zealand rugby. The players union has worked with the NZRU in the interests of all the stakeholders in the game there.
But this did not happen in Australia. RUPA, the players union, especially when Tony Dempsey was in charge, was active in trying to undermine the authority of the ARU, and especially the leadership of O’Neill. Gregan has been an active ringleader in all these attempts at destabilisation.
Given all this history, I would argue George Gregan owes an apology to rugby fans before he takes a seat on a board he tried to put into oblivion.
He and his mates tried to destroy the history, traditions and dreams of a great game. They were thwarted in this greedy enterprise. Since 1996 Gregan and his mates have flourished in the professional game they tried to destroy.
If George Gregan wants to have any credibility in his new role as game-keeper, he needs to apologise for his past history as a poacher.

 

[Bruce Ross]

The game is withering on the vine in my area - which most would think is a rugby stronghold - the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney: from Watsons Bay to La Perouse there will be 2 under 14 teams. There will be no team in the Shire from what I understand.

If true, and I have no reason to doubt your information, IS, the situation is moving towards the irretrievable.

Clearly we need something to arrest the slide and turn the code around. We need to capture people's attention and get everyone talking about rugby. Ever keen to be helpful, I have wracked my brain and come up with a slogan which could be printed as a bumper sticker and proudly displayed by all true followers of our code:

Australian Rugby - you wouldn't buy shares in the joint​

 

[Slim 293]

Spiro owes rugby fans an apology for writing such awful rubbish every week...

 

[Inside Shoulder]

If true, and I have no reason to doubt your information, IS, the situation is moving towards the irretrievable.

Clearly we need something to arrest the slide and turn the code around. We need to capture people's attention and get everyone talking about rugby. Ever keen to be helpful, I have wracked my brain and come up with a slogan which could be printed as a bumper sticker and proudly displayed by all true followers of our code:

Australian Rugby - you wouldn't buy shares in the joint​

As you can see its my new signature

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

Slim, agreed. A bit overwrought wasn't it.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

Perhaps, Slim and TBH, the message is (a) gregan is no saint (b) his shit stirring was for his own benefit so there is no guarantee he will shit stir for the benefit of the game

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

I'm aware of what his message is, but I don't for one minute believe that Gregan needs to apologise to the Australian rugby public.

 

[Slim 293]

Nah, it's a massive stretch from Spiro to connect the two events...

And to state that Gregan should 'apologise' for going along with what the majority of the players were is just ridiculous...

Spiro's reached a new low...

 

[suckerforred]

"Sources told me that Kearns and Gregan and others put tremendous pressure on younger players in the Wallabies to go along with them. Eales was not allowed into meetings with the team. This great man, on and off the field, was derided as ‘old yellow back.’"

Interesting, blatently unture, but interesting all the same.

From what I have heard, yes around this time there was disquiet in the ranks. I would also say that the action that these players took was the catylst for the code coming into the truely professional era. I would also like to point out that the ARU and NZRU were not saints within the whole shit fight.

As player rep on the board then Gregans role will be to fight for the players - would you expect anything else? Will he shit stir or not for the benefit of the game - we will not know until a year down the track. But has the ARU been functioning for the benfit of the game recently? What will change?

 

[daz]

I'm aware of what his message is, but I don't for one minute believe that Gregan needs to apologise to the Australian rugby public.

Yep. World Cup, Bledisloe, 3N, most capped, S15 title, etc, etc. Everything else is just office politics, the same as any other organisation the world.

Based on that record, if we think GG needs to apologise to us (the fans), then the mind boggles thinking about what Rocky should do. Eviserate himself in front of the SCG?

 

[Bruce Ross]

As you can see its my new signature

I'm truly honoured, IS, to see that a person of your taste and discernment is the very first to sign on for the resurrection campaign for our sport. When it goes viral globally you'll be able to boast to your mates in the pub that you were the pioneer.

 

[qwerty51]

I'd buy shares 1 year prior to a Lions tour

 

[lonhro10]

I notice spirios article is no longer available via the roar app..not sure if this has carried through to their site.

Will spiro need to apologise?

 

[Inside Shoulder]

"Sources told me that Kearns and Gregan and others put tremendous pressure on younger players in the Wallabies to go along with them. Eales was not allowed into meetings with the team. This great man, on and off the field, was derided as ‘old yellow back.’"

Interesting, blatently unture, but interesting all the same.

From what I have heard, yes around this time there was disquiet in the ranks. I would also say that the action that these players took was the catylst for the code coming into the truely professional era. I would also like to point out that the ARU and NZRU were not saints within the whole shit fight.

As player rep on the board then Gregans role will be to fight for the players - would you expect anything else? Will he shit stir or not for the benefit of the game - we will not know until a year down the track. But has the ARU been functioning for the benfit of the game recently? What will change?

I heard at the time that it ended kearns chances of being anything other than a standby wallaby captain.
The only book of Fitzsimon's I have ever read or will ever read was his "rugby wars" about this - leaving out the batman like "kapow" and "whamo" there seems to be some truth in Spiros account.
However, its a pretty low effort to obliquely refer to Jock HObbs' death and his response to talk of the circus and try to link them.

 

[Roundawhile]

There are two types of people in the world - those who use their power for the good, and those who don't.

Sometimes hard to tell who is who.............

 

[suckerforred]

I heard at the time that it ended kearns chances of being anything other than a standby wallaby captain.
The only book of Fitzsimon's I have ever read or will ever read was his "rugby wars" about this - leaving out the batman like "kapow" and "whamo" there seems to be some truth in Spiros account.
However, its a pretty low effort to obliquely refer to Jock HObbs' death and his response to talk of the circus and try to link them.

My comment was directed to the bit about Eales. Yes Gregan and Kerns were involved in the pressure, but his quote doesn't fully explain the 'involvement' of Eales. In Fitz's bio of Eales there is an interesting dicussion on the happenings for Eales's point of view and there are a few other mentions in a few other bios around. There was a lot going on and we could all pick and choose bits that will support one side of the arguement or the other, but I wish guys in Spiro's position (perceived or otherwise) would take more care with what they write and be a bit more balanced. But that would explain why I don't read the main stream media that much, if I do make sure I have a tonne of salt ready for use, and listen more to the opinions held by the esteemed contributers of GAGR.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

As I say I can't read fitz rubbish: did he suggest that Eales was more inside the tent than out?


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