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Wayne smith article in the oz
WAYNE SMITH
Senior sport writerBrisbane
@WayneKeithSmith
It was, somehow, predetermined, that in the very week Australian rugby wanted Perth to be all aglow with rugby fervour for the Test against the Springboks on Saturday, it is instead smouldering with rage at the innocent death of the Western Force.
The process of arriving at this decision to axe the Western Force from Super Rugby had taken 148 carefully counted days since ARU chairman Cameron Clyne had set the clock ticking by announcing that it would all be done speedily, taking no more than 48-72 hours.
All the legitimacy in the ARU’s position — that the game would be imperilled by continuing to stick with five teams — has gradually unravelled as the gruesome process wound its way down to Decision Day. The two heartland states, NSW and Queensland, were excused from the draw to select the short straw. One by one, the remaining contenders, the Brumbies, then the Rebels were eliminated from the gruesome ballot until only one team remained.
Seemingly the only people not aware that the wrong decision has been made, that the Force, of all teams, had something worth preserving, are the ARU directors. And even they sheepishly look the other way when asked why they did it.
Even yesterday, the ARU pushed forward the number of $28 million in unbudgeted expenses it had been forced to pay out to keep five teams afloat, somehow not realising how ridiculous it made them look. Just under $20 million was paid to keep another team alive. It doesn’t matter which one. But it wasn’t the Force.
It was this financial crisis that sparked the move to eliminate one club — and yet what did the ARU do? It eliminated the best-resourced rugby club in the history of *Australia.
All manner of reasons were presented on behalf of the club, reasons which should have had resonance and meaning to the ARU. Things like growth, participation numbers, the number of locally produced players in the Super Rugby side ... they all showed that the Force, amazingly, was running third behind the supposed giants, the Waratahs and the Reds. But it did them no good.
Wallabies coach Michael Cheika who — if you drill down deeply enough beneath the surface crust of stubble and the intimidating bear-like physique — is actually a surprisingly sensitive soul, found himself in the impossible position yesterday of being asked to say something meaningful about the Force’s demise. Yet he didn’t make a bad stab at it.
“It’s difficult to say anything that’s definitive, that can wrap up all the complexities, the personal emotions, the business realities, all the different reasons for all the different people,” he began. “It’s a difficult time. The one thing we can do, without taking away anything from the sadness that is being felt here, is to go out and show how much we want to play for West Australians and for the (local) lads inside the team who are in the Wallabies as well.”
It’s hard to say how West Australians will respond on Saturday. Ironically, the Perth Test was tracking well in terms of expected attendances — certainly better on a per capita than the recent All Blacks Test in Sydney — but that was before the death sentence was handed down. Now the people of the West are torn. On one hand they loathe the thought of giving the ARU a cent of their hard-earned money; on the other, they want to stick it to men and women who made this hideous decision by flooding nib Stadium with a king tide of Force blue.
Into this utterly insane situation has arrived the man who was once Australia’s richest billionaire but has now backtracked to merely sixth wealthiest with “only” $6.84bn, a man who developed his love of rugby while playing hooker for the First XV at Hale School in Perth. Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest.
Forrest had been a dedicated Force fan from the moment the club was formed in 2006, attending every single match in the early years with his wife Nicola and children. He is the sort of man who cares deeply for the things he loves — witness the fact that he literally bought back his family’s property, Minderoo Station — so the expectation was that when his club ran into trouble, he would simply write them a cheque. But he held his fire and the ARU has asked, almost accusingly, why he left it so late to come to their aid. His reason is simple: only when he suspected the Force was being set up did he intervene.
When the Force was sinking beneath the waves yesterday, he was the one who reached down and dragged them back to the surface, announcing his intention to set up a rival competition to Super Rugby. It was an audacious, almost brazen announcement but still one that has quickly galvanised every disgruntled group in Australian rugby, of which there are plenty.
The ARU were dismissive of his announcement, deigning not even to discuss it during their board meeting yesterday but curiously Cheika was anything but contemptuous of it.
“It’s a bit of a stretch to be thinking of those things,” he said, when asked of Forrest’s plans to set up a six-team competition.
“But you never say never. Powerful men. They can make things happen. You only have to look at World Series Cricket and Super League and the way that professional rugby started as well. They were the plans of one person.”
If the ARU is as blasé about Forrest as its public utterances would suggest, then it is fair to say that it still has its wooden ear firmly in place. Forrest has laid down a challenge to the national body. Indeed, as former ARU chief executive John O’Neill observed yesterday, it’s not just Australia that should be concerned. “That’s why the New Zealand Rugby Union would be silly to sit back and look at what’s happening here with any smugness.
“It’s a bit of a buzz word these days to talk about disruption. At a minimum, Twiggy can be a very significant disrupter. You’ll get lots of comments saying that this competition won’t fly, where is he going to get the teams from …. well, I’m not sure yet, but I wouldn’t dismiss him for a moment.”