Well, this is awkward.
Peter V’landys and one of his leading NRL officials are just settling down side-by-side in business class on the packed evening flight from Perth to Sydney last Monday evening, when who should arrive to take his spot on the aisle seat, but Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan!
There is a little frozen conversation, but under the circumstances of the NRL’s most recent threat to make poached Wallabies exempt from the salary cap – effectively declaring open season on Australian rugby in retaliation for rugby’s raids on the NRL – the tension is palpable.
Just before take-off the flight crew had lost a couple of attendants to Covid, so V’landys politely says: “If you don’t mind, I need to get up and get a beer.”
“Don’t get up,” says McLennan in a remarkably friendly fashion. “I’m in the aisle seat. I’ll get it for you.”
As soon as McLennan leaves, padding away in his socks, V’landys’ offsider picks up McLennan’s shoe and spits an enormous glob of phlegm into it. When McLennan returns with the beer, the offsider says: “That beer looks great. If you don’t mind, I’d really like one too?”
No problem. Again, McLennan is noteworthy for how speedily and happily he responds to the suggestion, despite it not being in his nature to be servile to anyone, let alone two officials from a rival code.
While he is gone, the offsider spits another glob of phlegm in the other shoe, for good measure. When McLennan returns, they all sit back and enjoy the rest of the flight.
As the plane is heading into land, McLennan slips his feet back into his shoes and knows immediately what has happened.
“Why does it have to be this way?” he cries out. “How long must this go on? This fighting between our two codes? This dreadful hatred between league and union? This animosity? This spitting in shoes … this spitting in beers!?”
Oh come on! It’s just a JOKE. (And both McLennan and V’landys have been big enough and good-humoured enough to have a laugh along at it with the rest of us. No writs coming, editor, I promise. I checked with them both and they loved it.)
ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys and Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan.Credit: Getty
The point is, it’s a fair question. Does it make sense for both codes to go at each other right now, and steal each other’s players?
I say not. And here’s why it doesn’t make sense for either:
Rugby Australia. Things have changed since the disastrous Rugby World Cup. Before it, with money assured to be flowing for several years to come through turnstiles, TV and sponsorship, it was fine to look over the likes of the Roosters’ Joseph Suaalii, and say, “Yes, we’ll take one of those. We’ll put him on a three-year contract, $5 million, no problem.”
But now? Is that money still assured to be flowing? After the October Catastrophe of failing to get out of the pool stage of the Rugby World Cup, who thinks the money will flow just as it did? I do not, at least not without a lot of hard work and change: with serious belt-tightening a bare beginning of what needs to be done.
Wallabies players after their loss against Wales in the World Cup in Lyon.Credit: AP
Plus, there is this. For rugby union in this country to prosper, the chasm between the rugby community and the Wallabies themselves has to close up. There has been a growing disconnect from us to them with the sense that the deeply felt love for the national rugby team once felt by so many, is not returned in kind by the few with the honour to wear the jersey. At one of the farewell functions held for them before departure, just two members of the squad turned up: Eddie Jones and the youngest player, who was injured, Max Jorgensen.
No doubt this was because of an Eddie edict for the Wallabies themselves to stay back and rest, but the point remains: there is a vast chasm, a distressing disconnect that sees ever more Wallabies supporters simply drift away, while some baldly announce, “I’m done”.
We will see how Suaalii works out, if he is there for the right reasons and wants to embrace rugby the way rugby wants to embrace him, but the fact that Roosters chairman Nick Politis has put in the public domain that Suaalii has told him he’ll be back in three years does not engender confidence.
As Australian rugby goes forward, and it will, we have to put in the Wallabies jersey only those for whom it has been their greatest dream to wear it, who are of rugby, and want to give back to the community whence they have come. That may indeed still be Suaalii, but launching more raids on NRL players coming over for the money will not close that gap.
The Roosters’ Joseph Suaalii signed with Rugby Australia in March.Credit: Getty Images
As to the NRL’s reckoned raids, it is true that over the years some of league’s greatest players had a union background, as witness the likes of the great Dally Messenger, Wally Lewis, Ray Price and Michael O’Connor, to name just a few.
But, right now? Who, really, do we have, where it would be mutually beneficial for both rugby league and the Wallaby himself to make the transition? The reports are that they’re after winger Mark Nawaqanitawase, who is indeed a standout player in rugby union.
But in league? Of all the positions in the NRL, it is winger where they are most blessed with extraordinary athletes. Every match you see them charge down the sideline with three centimetres to spare on their outside boot, only to be hit by three cover defenders, and still manage to contort their body so that the one remaining finger inside the line gets the ball down just inside the corner flag!
Roosters-bound former Newcastle winger Dominic Young flips over the try line to score against the Dragons.Credit: Getty
If the NRL buys Nawaqanitawase for big bucks, they will be buying what they don’t actually need.
Any forwards they should go after, then? Nup. With rare exceptions – see Ray Price, above – rugby union forward skills don’t translate well to league. Inside backs, then?
Who do you see?
Me neither.
Friends, this is a furphy, going nowhere. No more spitting in shoes, and spitting in beers, at least in the short term. Let’s be friends.
Twitter: @Peter_Fitz
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