RWC RANT No. 5
Do European clubs and therefore the Northern Hemisphere nations have a greater advantage over Australian franchises and our national team? They seem to be attracting a lot of Southern Hemisphere players and if they stay long enough may be eligible for other nations or at a minimum improve the abilities of players in the north by exposing them to our southern style of play.
Geddes article identifies the elephant in the room; how easy it is for young talent to walk away from Australian Rugby. In his article he cites a young Shute Shield and NRC outside back who couldn’t get a gig with any of the Super Rugby Franchises. His options were to stay and keep plugging away or accept an offer to play professionally in Europe? Are we being silly letting players like this walk away or is out glass overflowing?
Look at someone like Greg Peterson, a 24 year old with oodles of potential who couldn’t get a regular go at the Waratahs while on contract and not wanted by any other franchise decides to head over and play in for the USA in this year’s RWC. Ben Volavola is another that comes to mind leaving Australia to ply his trade for Fiji. I’ve seen Peterson play at Shute Shield and NRC level and thought he deserved a little more Super Rugby game time and surely there was space for a man of his size in one of the other franchises? Apparently not, but I guess I’m not a Super Rugby coach.
It does raise the question of how to stop this from happening or do we just let it be and say whatever happens happens? Is it simply the attitude of the current generation of young players who want everything too soon and are not prepared to put it in for longer periods of time? The dollars in Australia clearly don’t match what’s on offer in Europe or Japan but if young players are developed here, earn money and gain European experience and come back better players and rejoin the Australian system a little wiser and a lot richer is that a bad thing? May be that should be the focus – sow your seeds abroad but come back here to roost?
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