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I'm calling bullshit on this and would like to see the Rebels books please. How could they squeeze under the $5.5million with those signings. Some creative ideas accounting or the players arent demanding much these days..
Rebels insist they are under cap
Wayne Smith
OCTOBER 16, 2018
As a 16th Wallabies player, Luke Jones, was announced as a squad member with a 17th, Quade Cooper, expected to be confirmed within days, Melbourne Rebels CEO Baden Stephenson yesterday went on the offensive and insisted the club squeezed in under the $5.5 million salary cap, if only just.
At face value, the Rebels are assembling not just the most powerful franchise in Australia but in the entire Super Rugby competition with, four props, a hooker, two second-rowers, two backrowers, a halfback, five-eighth, one centre, three wingers and a fullback already having played Test football.
And there is more … flanker Angus Cottrell has already been taken away on a Wallaby tour and is set to be capped in Europe on the spring campaign, centre Billy Meakes has been in and out of the Test squad, while No 8 Isi Naisarani does not become eligible to play for Australia until April but will surely be brought in for next year’s Rugby Championship. With Cooper set to finalise the main contracted squad, it’s a formidable outfit coach Dave Wessels will unleash on Super Rugby next year.
Yet Stephenson did point out some realities that critics of the Rebels have frequently overlooked. Of those 17 Wallabies, only six are frontline Test regulars — lock Adam Coleman, halfback Will Genia, five-eighth Matt Toomua and back field specialists Reece Hodge, Marika Koroibete and Dane Haylett-Petty, with wingers Jack Maddocks and Sefa Naivalu floating in an out.
Cooper’s salary will be half-met by Queensland, half by the Rebels, and even then Rugby Australia will contribute a sizeable slice to the whole as part of its Wallabies top-up. The same applies to other Rebels’ players on Rugby Australia’s PONI (Players of National Interest) list. And with Will Genia being nominated as the Rebels’ marquee player, it means that only $200,000 of his considerably larger salary will actually count towards the $5.5 million total.
Jones has volunteered to return to Melbourne from Bordeaux at bargain basement rates, being prepared to take a financial “haircut” for the opportunity to make a bold bid for World Cup selection next year, while hooker Jordan Uelese and Maddocks are very much being paid in line with their youth — they are both 21 — and not the fact that they have played two and five Tests respectively.
”It is probably better coming from the players but I suspect that those players we’ve developed love Melbourne and have loved the opportunity to play Super Rugby and a few have progressed onto Wallabies,” said Stephenson. “The guys we picked up from the Western Force aren’t on huge money but they believe in Dave, they believe in the rugby program and they’re certainly committed to the club and loving the environment. I’ve been little bit surprised that some of the other clubs having a nibble at some of our players.
“For the first time in my time (with the Rebels), we are tight on the cap, there is no doubt about that. But we’re putting together a fairly good squad.”
There will be some critical eyes on Wessels’ performance as coach in 2019. It would not have escaped Rugby Australia’s notice that so many of the country’s Test players are prepared to be paid “under the odds” to be coached by him. He comes off contract at the end of next season, right when the Wallabies will be looking for a new coaching team and a good performance from the Rebels could see him right in the mix.
Meanwhile, the Reds have bolstered their squad with the signing of Adam Korczyk. The 23-year-old flanker and Brisbane City NRC captain has agreed to a one-year deal and joins such stalwarts of the team as Samu Kerevi, Izack Rodda, JP Smith, Filipo Daugunu and Chris Feauai-Sautia in re-committing to the Reds in 2019.
Korczyk has made 26 appearances for Queensland since being first offered a contract in 2015 and was named in the Wallabies squad for the first two Tests of the Bledisloe Cup series last year.
Coach Brad Thorn has continued to bring fresh blood into the team, also signing three talented next generation players to emerge from the NRC, with Harry Wilson, Efi Ma’afu and Will Eadie all signed for next season.
Backrower Wilson, the QRU’s Under 19 player for this year and a thickset player causing a lot of excitement at Ballymore, and hooker Ma’afu are both expected to be named in the Queensland Country 23 for Sunday’s NRC semi-finals against the Western Force on the Gold Coast.
In other news, there may be some consolation for former Wallabies lock Justin Harrison after he just missed being chosen as the Rugby Union Players Association chief executive this week, with the position going to Prataal Raj.
France-based Harrison is regarded as frontrunner to take over the running of the Classic Wallabies program now that Stephen Hoiles has moved on to coaching the Australian men’s sevens side.