Fitz Files 9th August 2008
Kiss of death
Told yers. Specifically, I told yers that the significance of Sonny Bill's departure to France was not that he left in the middle of the night, mid-season, it was that it was a sign that the money in France at this moment is so huge that it is going to shake up the whole game, not just one or two players at the top. I cite as an example an interesting story written by Daniel McDonald in The Canberra Times this week about local labourer Wade Grintell, who spent three years playing Premier League for the Canberra Raiders and then just half a season with rugby union club Uni-Norths and has just secured a $150,000-a-year deal to play for second-division French rugby club Aurillac - just near my old club, Brive, seeing as you ask. Are you with me? When a league player not quite good enough to cut it in the NRL can, after just half-a-season's tuition in rugby union, pick up three grand a week in France, how many of our blokes - union and league - aren't going to be wanting some of the same action? Player manager Steve Gillis puts his finger on it: "If he can get that, it's a good lifestyle and a great opportunity, then that just goes to show what is happening here. They can go from playing on next to nothing here to be paid well over there."
more entertaining stuff here...
