Following hard on the heels of the governmental Flood Levy announcement, a cartel of player agents have suggested raising another levy – this time to ensure Australian rugby players are not forced to earn their millions overseas.
“It’s unfortunate, but the money’s gotta come from somewhere” said cartel leader Dennis Danuto. “Those rich lunatics running the French clubs aren’t going to wait around forever for the ARU to pull their finger out. They have the attention span of a crack addict and our dicking of the Frogs in November is the last shiny bauble they’ve seen. We need to strike NOW to keep Australian players in Australia.”
Earlier this week Australian rugby had the rudest of wake-up calls with the plundering of 4th string Wallaby Hooker Huia Edmonds by English money-pit Saracens. Several prominent commentators, including Wayne Smith of The Australian, have been clear on the hole this leaves in Australia’s 29 year-old chip-kicking-hooker stocks. But this is just the tip of the ice-berg.
It’s understood that Green and Gold Rugby’s own Luke Burgess could be in the sights of the Euro mega-club Toulouse, subject to them actually wanting him. It’s not been an easy ride in the Wallabies for Burgess (nick-named “McFly” and “Ass-Burgess”), some citing communication issues between him and hot-shot number 10, Quade Cooper.
“Communication i’s mos def a problem. He dznt even know the diff between brus, bro, bra and bred for a start. lolz” tweeted Cooper, allegedly.
One potential barrier to Toulouse signing Burgess is the plummet in team porn supply that the departure of Byron Kelleher would create, a difficult role for the clean cut New South Welshman to fill. G&GR understands that the ARU has prepared a Burgess counter offer consisting of Tracy Chapman and Supertramp CD box sets, should the French uber-team stumble across his name.
However, player agent Danuto insists that cash rich foreign raiders aren’t the only option, “League might not be able to pay as much, be endlessly repetitive and have no meaningful international profile, but there are other benefits – just ask Joel Monaghan. If the ARU doesn’t respond to these threats, then there’ll be others. The Canadian hockey league draft is only months away.”
When pressed on how the rugby levy would operate, Danuto gets a little hazier. “We’re still tweaking the finer details, it’s more the vibe of the thing we’ve got down at this point in time. Our current thinking is to make the levy quite focused, like on the North Shore of Sydney. No-one likes those wankers anyway.”
