6
need of cash and attention
THE AUSTRALIANAPRIL 26, 2016 12:00AM
SAVE
Wayne Smith
Senior sport writer
They are the club seemingly set up to fail. They receive little help from SANZAAR and, until recently, none from the Australian Rugby Union. Small wonder the Western Force are constantly battling to stay afloat.
They might have been the fourth Australian club created in Super Rugby but they are the fifth in terms of where players want to ply their trade. Sydney and Brisbane are always assured of homegrown talent, Canberra boasts one of the most appealing coaching programs in Super Rugby and the Rebels are milking Melbourne for all it has to offer.
Perth, by contrast, is a continent removed. Indeed, the flight to Johannesburg is only double that of the flight to Brisbane, which goes a long way to explaining why SANZAAR finds the WA team so appealing. The Force play seven matches at home this season, every one of them against teams either coming from or going to South Africa. That might sound like a logical use of geography but in fact the Force is jerked this way and that by the need to service the itineraries of every other Super Rugby team.
Case in point: the Force played their second match of the season against the Reds in Brisbane but then, rather than remain on the east coast or travel to New Zealand, they were forced to backtrack to Perth to play the Brumbies on their way to South Africa.
Only after they had completed that assignment were they able to travel back across Australia and on to New Zealand for a three-match tour. Technically speaking, SANZAAR had done them a favousr by allowing them to play three NZ matches in a block but when that translates to the Hurricanes (currently fifth), Chiefs (first) and Highlanders (sixth) on successive weekends, one wonders what SANZAAR’s idea of punishing them might be.
Similarly, after playing their round 14 match against the Rebels in Melbourne, they have to fly to Bloemfontein for a match against the Cheetahs before rushing home to Perth to play the Stormers, who will be on their way home. Then the Force finish the season by playing the Brumbies in Canberra, not having played successive matches on the east coast through the 17 weeks of Super Rugby.
Every Super Rugby team has stories of difficult itineraries but the Force routinely are subjected to a murderous match schedule that would be funny were it not so exhausting.
The longest journey the Waratahs had to make in the first eight rounds of the competition was to Brisbane. Having played the Force in Perth in round nine last weekend, NSW travelled on to their Cape Town engagement with the Stormers, their only match in South Africa. Their two matches in New Zealand later in the season are widely spaced — Crusaders on May 20, Blues on July 15.
Granted, the Tahs do have to travel to Tokyo to play the Sunwolves on July 2, after a month’s break for the June internationals against England. The Force, too, play in Japan, on May 7, but their match is sandwiched into the main body of the season.
If SANZAAR wishes to continue using Perth to break up the trip to and from South Africa, it surely has to cut the Force some dispensations elsewhere.
Until recently, the ARU had provided the Force with zero assistance, other than whatever the east coast clubs also received. Until this year, they operated on money socked away at the height of the mining boom. This year, however, that nest egg ran out and they *finally turned to the national body.
The ARU handed over $800,000 in exchange for the Force’s intellectual property (it also owns the Rebels, the only private enterprise club in Australia) and now more assistance is in the wind after St Leonards effectively took over the club.
When the Waratahs beat the Force on Saturday night, the discrepancy in pay rates for the two sides was about $2 million. The Tahs had a dozen players on Wallabies top-ups, the Force only one, Ben McCalman.
It’s worth keeping that in mind when Foley’s record of one win for every two losses is raised. Fortunately, Force general manager Mark Sinderberry yesterday said there would be no review of Foley’s position until the end of the season.
But simply redistributing Wallabies by means of a draft isn’t the answer, at least not as far as the ARU is concerned.
Queensland had many a quality player at their disposal in recent years, most topped up by the ARU, but they got their coaching structure entirely wrong and ended up with a win rate of 26 per cent.
A whole range of options and solutions is being discussed, from the coaching culture to player contracting to drafts and top-ups. Many of them are ideas originating in New Zealand and we know from Robbie Deans’ days that Kiwi ideas don’t universally transfer to Australia.
But, hopefully, some of them will.
The Eastern states media on our side? Whats going on?
Looks like Foleys safe until the end of the season.
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Originally Posted by Kalahard
