Tuesdays Rugby News sees Rugby Australia turned a profit, Meakes cited, Rumoured new coach, Player rotations affecting the Waratahs.
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RUGBY AUSTRALIA TURNS A PROFIT
Rugby Australia announced an $5.2 million profit in 2018 at their AGM on Monday, which is an $8.9 million turn around from the previous year when they lost $3.7 million.
Rugby Australia Chairman Cameron Clyne believes that the profit will help soften the financial blow that often comes during a World Cup year.
Super Rugby Club cost were down significantly after the axing of the Western Force, approximately $6.4 million, with Player contracting cost also significantly down.
Despite a sellout Irish June series, match day revenue was down by approximately $2.7, which was largely due to the poor turn out at the Sydney 7s that was hosted on the Australia day long weekend, and the poor crowd numbers at the South Africa and Argentina games. That might indicate not to host tests on the Gold Coast.
Due to the lack of home games this season, this profit is particularly more important considering there is less chance to raise revenue.
“What the profit we’ve engineered for 2018 allows us to do is actually not have to cut (costs) by absorbing the loss we’re going to make in 2019,” Clyne said.
“The ultimate solution is to get revenue that’s more sustainable, not always reliant on team performance.”
The reduced costs involved with Super Rugby also, the report stated, allowed for an extra $1 million to be directed into the community space in 2018.
Clyne also indicated that though it wasn’t the sole reason for the financial turnaround, Australia was seeing some of the positive effects on the game, in both a financial and on-field capacity.
“The reason that we went through the process of going back to four teams – one was to improve the financial health of the organisation and put us in the position where we can actually increase funding, we have increased funding across the board in a number of areas,” he said.
“So, you’re starting to see early uplifts in broadcast numbers and those sort of thing, which suggest if that continues then you start to get better performance and better revenue flowing from that.”
2018 saw an increase in participation numbers, in particularly with a massive increase in women’s participation in 7s and XVs. School programs are also on the rise.
“One of the pleasing things was the uplift – we’re seeing extraordinary uplift in things like women’s participation both in sevens and XVs,” he said.
“Our schools program is really moving forward with a lot of participation, particularly now getting into the government schools.
“We’ve got an exciting series of programs to engage in regional parts of the country as well.
“There’s no question in a World Cup year, particularly if the team does well, it does have the opportunity to leverage off that.
“One of the things we have as a sport is we’re a global sport, we’re one of the few Australian sports that’s on the global stage.
The report covers all the earnings and losses.
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RUMOURED NEW WALLABIES ATTACK COACH
Nothing has been officially said on the topic, and Michael Cheika ‘claimed’ there is no major hurry and the candidate will be sought after for May. It appears though that Matt Giteau might be the front runner for the position of Wallabies attack coach.
Stephen Larkham was ousted from the position for “differences in attacking strategy and overall game philosophy” with Cheika back in February but the hunt for a new coach only started recently with the arrival of Scott Johnson, the news Director of Rugby.
According to Fox Sports Christy Doran, the name Giteau has been whispered around ever since Larkham lost the job and neither Giteau or Cheika have sounded very convincing on the matter.
“The person we bring in will be someone I think that will be with the players, on field a lot, not build a lot of strategy, more getting players to embrace strategy and understand it so it’s automatic on the field.”
It is the line about “on field and “getting players to embrace strategy and understand it” that make a former player and mentor like Giteau the prime target for the role Cheika wants, and maybe even needs.
“There’s no major hurry, we’re not training yet are we?
“There’s a few things that I want to unfold first and I probably reckon about May sometime in the lead-up to another camp.
“I’ve got a few people in mind.
“I’m not going to tell you that because the people don’t know.
“They’re in Australia.”
Cheika also said that he has sought out advice from sporting people including Giteau, Chris Latham, Phil Kearns, Charlotte Caslick and “some rugby league types.”
On the Fox Sports Kick Off show a few weeks back, Giteau was asked the question as part of the “yay, nay or hard to say” segment.
After an awkward pause and some pushing from his life partner Drew Mitchell, Giteau answered “Nay,”
“I’m available, but it won’t be from a paid employment point of view.”
At this point Giteau has yet to be offered the role, but it is understood and evident through social media that he has been doing mentoring work with the Brumbies this season.
Giteau featured heavily in the 2015 World Cup campaign after Michael Cheika moved heaven and earth to change the Rugby Australia eligibility laws to create the “The Giteau Law”
Waratahs coach Daryl Gibson and Rebels attack coach Shaun Berne are some of the other names being thrown around, despite Rugby Australia boss Raelene Castle previously saying “Our preference is not to disturb Super Rugby” and it wouldn’t do either club any favours to pull their coaches out for a position not likely to last past November.
You can see Cheika’s answers to a few more questions here, including a explanation of the resting policy that sounds like he’s convincing himself as much as he’s convincing fans that they know what they are doing about it.
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BILLY MEAKES CITED
In another saga of SANZAAR review board leaving fans unsure of what deserves a citation or suspension.
In form Melbourne Rebels Centre Billy Meakes has been cited for a dangerous tackle on Sunwolves centre Jason Emery in his sides 42-15 win on Saturday night.
Trying to clear the ball from their 22 in the 66th minute, Emery had put boot to ball when Meakes pulled his signature rush up defence, and floored him.
At the time the referee said he was happy with the timing but asked the TMO to review a high hit or no arms, to which the TMO said there was no problem
Meakes has been cited under Law 9.13:”A player must not tackle an opponent early, late or dangerously. Dangerous tackling includes, but is not limited to, tackling or attempting to tackle an opponent above the line of the shoulders even if the tackle starts below the line of the shoulders.”
The Rebels will host the Stormer on Friday night at AAMI park as they look to extend their lead in the Australia conference.
If Meakes is suspended then Dave Wessels will have some interesting decisions on who he plays at Inside Centre, given Billy’s ability in defence but also act as a strong second playmaker to relieve any pressure on Quade Cooper.
Meakes’ case was heard Monday night at 5pm, so stay tuned for another episode of “He’s making it up as he goes along” as brought to you by the SANZAAR Judiciary Committee.
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CHOPPING AND CHANGING CAUSING TAHS GRIEF
Waratahs attack coach Chris Whitaker believes that his team needs to adapt better to the player rotations if they want to play finals this year.
The Waratahs, currently second on the ladder, sit two games behind the Melbourne Rebels, head into a bye week before they host the Rebels on Good Friday at the SCG.
With the Waratahs home to a large number of Wallabies it is likely they would have to rest someone every week under Michael Cheika’s resting policy.
Whitaker thinks that the consistent changing of combinations is denting the confidence of players as they aren’t able to click the way pairings normally would.
“We’ve got a couple of new players coming in there and then combinations, we’ve switched them around most weeks,” he said.
“I suppose the boys have found it hard to get good combinations working, so maybe that’s something we look at.
“We’ve got some types of limitations on what we can do with the policy that’s been put in place but we just need to be the best that we can at that and come up with a way of giving them confidence in the combinations we’re going to run out with.”
According to Whitaker it isn’t something that the players have raised, more just something that he has observed.
“No, that’s just my observation that I think we’re creating a lot of opportunities but we’re just not finishing them,” he said.
“I suppose that comes down to execution and skills and then it comes down to combination and confidence.”
Whitaker has been pleased to see new record try scorer Israel Folau find his form again after a slow start to the season.
“He’s one of those players that you probably want to give the ball as much as you can,” Whitaker said of Folau.
“I think that’s what we did on the weekend, he worked hard to put himself in a position to touch the ball and I think every time he touched the ball he created something.
“Whether it was from a high ball or spaces out wide, he’s got the ability to create space for himself and other people.
“Our mentality is to give the ball as much as we can to him.”
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