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David Wilson (68)
Once again, its not 1.6 million, its 800k a year. That sounds far more reasonable, so the press don't run with that headline.
I struggle to understand how the two are mutually exclusive, and in fact there's a good argument they might be tied together. If we poured all the limited funds we have into developing junior pathways now, we wouldn't bear the fruits of it till after the Lions and the World Cup. And if we don't perform at those, having great development pathways won't matter because no kids will want to play the game.
The reality of the complete mess we are in is we need to do both. And the strategy is to maximise performance over the next four years to extract as much coin from the World Cup and Lions Series as we possibly can. Angus is an excellent player. He played for NSW when he was 22. I understand it is hard to find a positive spin on anything Aus Rugby related atm. But there are plenty of reasons to suggest this is good news.
The Wallabies have become a total diversion of rational funding when the code is in survival mode. Sharp decisions should have been made back when we were closer to the top five, wherein you would hope we would not have dropped out the top 10 through the rebuild. At this point kicking the can down the road with more top-down idiocy is not just an irreverent waste but fails any values-based policy when the code is in jeopardy.
It is time for the Wallabies to take a break on our funding priorities. Commercial opportunity lies within the the RWC and the BIL either way. A target needs to be simply getting out of the pool, but this must be achieved without unaffordable sugar hits. It is irrational to suggest that we can afford to "do both".
Even if this were not true, right now media coverage chasing league targets is simply offensive to many in the actual grass roots. There is no game without that foundation.