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Thread: 'Been sick for years': Wallabies great savages Rugby Australia 'train smash'

  1. #46
    Veteran Bakkies's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chopper1 View Post
    I would like to know what NFJ's thoughts were re the axing of the Force..
    He was against the axing.

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    https://omny.fm/shows/the-alan-jones-breakfast-show/cameron-clyne

    Link to Senate Report http://www.aph.gov.au/senate_ca

    https://www.change.org/p/rugby-australia-petition-for-cameron-clyne-to-resign-as-chairman-of-the-rugby-australia-board

  2. #47
    Immortal Contributor shasta's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bakkies View Post
    He was against the axing.
    Yep. That was when I first noticed that he was not toeing the company line. Noddy went a step further and lent a hand to the cause.

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  3. #48
    Veteran Bakkies's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by shasta View Post
    Yep. That was when I first noticed that he was not toeing the company line. Noddy went a step further and lent a hand to the cause.
    People used the misappropriation of funds to pay for Jim Williams’ mortgage. Not good but how many of these deals in the game that have gone on over the years under ‘commercial in confidence’ and the books dwindle away.

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    https://omny.fm/shows/the-alan-jones-breakfast-show/cameron-clyne

    Link to Senate Report http://www.aph.gov.au/senate_ca

    https://www.change.org/p/rugby-australia-petition-for-cameron-clyne-to-resign-as-chairman-of-the-rugby-australia-board

  4. #49
    Senior Player Chopper1's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bakkies View Post
    He was against the axing.
    Good to know he's one of the good guys...

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  5. #50
    Immortal Contributor shasta's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bakkies View Post
    People used the misappropriation of funds to pay for Jim Williams’ mortgage. Not good but how many of these deals in the game that have gone on over the years under ‘commercial in confidence’ and the books dwindle away.

    Yep; and I'd tend to say that was a misuse of funds to help someone in financial distress rather than a misappropriation. That usually refers to embezzlement for one own use (I think?). The money was intended to be re-paid. I'd say that NF-J and the other bloke involved probably would have been wiser to have made the repayment themselves ASAP with the intention of collecting later. Didn't NF-J end up having to make good himself anyway?

    Of course that doesn't make it excusable. But it's light years distant from fraudulently using ARU funds to make the Rabble solvent and able to be sold for a buck. All the while saying they had no knowledge. That's criminal and I still hold hope the people who did it will one day be held to account.

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  6. #51
    Veteran Bakkies's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by shasta View Post
    Yep; and I'd tend to say that was a misuse of funds to help someone in financial distress rather than a misappropriation. That usually refers to embezzlement for one own use (I think?). The money was intended to be re-paid. I'd say that NF-J and the other bloke involved probably would have been wiser to have made the repayment themselves ASAP with the intention of collecting later. Didn't NF-J end up having to make good himself anyway?

    Of course that doesn't make it excusable. But it's light years distant from fraudulently using ARU funds to make the Rabble solvent and able to be sold for a buck. All the while saying they had no knowledge. That's criminal and I still hold hope the people who did it will one day be held to account.
    The money was supposed to be a for an Aboriginal community program. Worboys and Farr Jones didn’t have enough money to assist Williams right at that moment. The intention was to pay it back which they did.

    Williams had lost his Walllabies forwards coach role and struggled to get a reasonable income to make ends meet.

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    https://omny.fm/shows/the-alan-jones-breakfast-show/cameron-clyne

    Link to Senate Report http://www.aph.gov.au/senate_ca

    https://www.change.org/p/rugby-australia-petition-for-cameron-clyne-to-resign-as-chairman-of-the-rugby-australia-board

  7. #52
    Legend Contributor brokendown gunfighter's Avatar
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    Sometimes trying to do the right thing,but not exactly Kosha,bites you on the bum

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  8. #53
    Veteran Bakkies's Avatar
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    Kearns was also in favour of retaining the Force.

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    https://omny.fm/shows/the-alan-jones-breakfast-show/cameron-clyne

    Link to Senate Report http://www.aph.gov.au/senate_ca

    https://www.change.org/p/rugby-australia-petition-for-cameron-clyne-to-resign-as-chairman-of-the-rugby-australia-board

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    Israel Folau to lose his millions if Rugby Australia goes under

    Israel Folau to lose his millions if Rugby Australia goes under

    WAYNE SMITH
    SENIOR SPORT WRITER
    8:49PM APRIL 5, 2020

    In a very direct way, Israel Folau has driven Rugby Australia to the brink of insolvency, but now it emerges that if the sport’s governing body goes under, it could cost him millions of dollars.

    Sources told The Australian that Folau’s out-of-court settlement — which is undisclosed but understood to be the remnants of his four-year contract, some $3m — is being paid off in instalments.

    There were no details of what the payments were or how frequently they were being paid but, ironically, it leaves Folau desperately hoping the game he almost bankrupted with his freedom of religion lawsuit stays afloat.

    Should RA be forced to declare itself insolvent, Folau would become an unsecured creditor. Depending on what assets RA could muster, he’d likely be paid out only a few cents in the dollar.

    As one observer put it, he would be paid the same rate as the pest controller or jersey supplier.

    After a stand-off lasting nine months following Folau’s decision to post homophobic messages on the internet, in breach of promises he had made to RA chief executive Raelene Castle and Wallabies coach Michael Cheika, an out-of-court settlement between the two parties was reached in December, with both parties apologising to each other.

    Worryingly for Folau, World Cup-winning captain Nick Farr-Jones predicted that an administrator could be appointed to RA within the next fortnight.

    “I understand reserves are minimal ... that would only be funds that have come from World Rugby from the participation right of the World Cup last year,” he told the ABC. “Otherwise I don’t think we’ve put any acorns away for a winter like we’re expecting at the moment, where there is no income projected.”

    RA, which has no intentions of declaring itself insolvent, met on Sunday with the Rugby Union Players Association in an attempt to work out an emergency pay deal with its players to cover the next three months.

    “This is about cash, this is about our cashflow position and what we can afford to give the players,” said RA chairman Paul McLean. “The rest of rugby has taken an 85 per cent payroll cut. It’s not forever. It’s for three months, and then we can continue to work with them on a weekly basis as things change.”

    The meeting broke up after 2˝ hours with no resolution.

    “Talks were positive and robust, with both parties agreeing to continue to move negotiations forward with ongoing discussions scheduled for this week,” RA said in a statement. “Rugby Australia remains focused on securing a fair and reasonable deal with the players that will help protect the long-term future of our game.” RA also took heart from recent comments from World Rugby as it assists all national unions to navigate through the pandemic crisis — which, of itself, showed how desperately it is travelling because the World Rugby statement promised effectively nothing.

    “We are well aware of the situation down south,” World Rugby chairman Bill Beaumont told The Daily Mail. “The southern unions are looking at the July Tests and the northern unions are looking at the November Tests but we are all in it together.”

    The difference is that the SANZAAR partners’ peak earning period is three months from starting whereas the earliest commitments in the northern hemisphere are in November. The Wallabies are scheduled to play Ireland (November 7 in Dublin), France (November 14 in Paris) and England (November 28 in London) on their spring tour.


    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/spo...aaae6bac763e95

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  10. #55
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    Rugby needs change but timing is off in siege of Castle

    Rugby needs change but timing is off in siege of Castle

    By Georgina Robinson
    Updated April 5, 2020 — 6.25pm

    The coronavirus pandemic has laid bare Australian rugby's structural frailties.

    The economic cost of continuing with Super Rugby, a competition long dead in the hearts and minds of Australian fans, to honour an historic southern-hemisphere alliance is irresponsible.

    Trying to keep pace with the overseas player markets of England, France and Japan was sending the game broke well before the Ruby Princess docked in Sydney Harbour.

    Similar to the follies exposed at the heart of the NRL's business model, rugby has been spending too much money on footballers and sports administrators. In rugby's case, the extra crime is that good money has been thrown after bad, in support of a competition that can no longer deliver the revenue needed to keep the cycle going.

    But Rugby Australia chief executive Raelene Castle was only the latest administrator who lacked the courage to tackle this most fundamental of problems head-on.

    She and her board had agreed to stick with Super Rugby for another five years.

    Her predecessor, Bill Pulver, signed Australia up to an 18-team, two conference model that will go down as the single worst two years of Super Rugby in history. Pulver and then-chairman Cameron Clyne believed a history-making 148 per cent increase in broadcast cash would paper over the competition's structural failings. They were wrong. Haemorrhaging cash, Australia surrendered a Super Rugby team, the Western Force, two years into the deal.

    Castle has not been a great administrator in her two years in rugby. It was her call to re-sign Israel Folau on a multi-million dollar four-year deal, after he'd shown himself to be a high-risk proposition on social media. And allowed him to be re-signed with no extra controls on his social media activity.

    It was Castle's call and the board's to grin and bear the final two years of Michael Cheika's Wallabies tenure because, while it was clear he needed checks and balances, she didn't want to alienate him. When the results worsened further, a year out from the 2019 World Cup, and the board baulked at sacking him, Castle did the best she could, building out a high performance team with a director of rugby above Cheika and a panel of selectors.

    She appears to have alienated important stakeholders, including current broadcast partner Foxtel and, recently, Australia's top professional players, when she spent two weeks holding out on financial information she didn't believe the players union had the right to see. This was a colossal error of judgement.

    At the very time Castle needed every friend she could find, she failed to understand the unique history between Australia's professional players and the governing body. She has treated them as she might any other small member union, not as key stakeholders.

    The Rugby Union Players Association is steeped in the militant roots of the game's conversion to professionalism in 1995, when RUPA took the then-Australian Rugby Union to court over much less than a pay dispute. Castle picked a battle with them this week and lost, and in coaching parlance, she lost the dressing room.

    These are the lowlights. But before the revolutionaries yell "and what about the broadcast deal!", a note on that.

    Castle has been criticised for walking away from Foxtel's rights offer in a period of exclusive negotiations eight months ago. No matter how many times this is painted as an unequivocal blunder, the reality is there was genuine interest from a rival in the form of telco Optus.

    She should have been sacked if she'd taken the Foxtel deal, which was roughly the same money from a broadcaster with a severely challenged balance sheet and too many sports.

    Instead, Castle and her board chose to take the game to tender, a process that was likely to change the course of the game for the better until the wet markets of Wuhan came to wreak havoc on the world.

    Perversely, the coronavirus shutdown may have suddenly given RA a blank slate on which to draw a sustainable, engaging and affordable competition, without the constraints of a signed broadcast agreement for the old product.

    In her favour, Castle recruited the highly-regarded and successful Dave Rennie to replace Cheika as Wallabies coach, but it remains to be seen whether he will coach a Test match this year given the pandemic's relentless march. This is another disaster not of Castle's making but, in more coaching parlance, it is what it is.

    There it stands. A $120 million revenue hole, an unnecessary stand-off with the players, a recent poor Wallabies record and no broadcast deal. Is it any wonder Alan Jones, Rod Kafer and Nick Farr-Jones found an opening and bolted through it?

    Their sentiments are correct. The game needs change. With its frailties laid bare, someone must be accountable. Castle is unlikely to be renewed beyond the end of the year.

    But few working inside the game currently believe the way out of rugby's hole is to spear Castle right this minute.

    The overwhelming preference of the Super Rugby boards and their executives is to work with Castle and the board to trade out of the current crisis.

    So no change, for now. There is no credible alternative, internally or externally, ready to take her place.

    Despite the influential and bloodthirsty forces massing in the shadows, rugby is not divorced from the ecosystem in which it exists.

    For all sports, all Australians, and nations around the world, right now survival is key. And unity is key to survival.

    https://www.smh.com.au/sport/rugby-u...05-p54h9k.html

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  11. #56
    Immortal Contributor shasta's Avatar
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    Looks like GeeRob is no fan of Kearns, either. Not that that means a lot......


    So no change, for now. There is no credible alternative

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  12. #57
    Immortal GIGS20's Avatar
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    I think GeeRob is just trying to recapture her favoured status that appears to have been lost. Sucking up to RA management is the only possible way of being a rugby journalist in Australia

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    C'mon the

  13. #58
    Veteran valzc's Avatar
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    If RA do end up being declared insolvent, how would that impact on Rugby WA & junior clubs?

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  14. #59
    Legend Contributor fulvio sammut's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by valzc View Post
    If RA do end up being declared insolvent, how would that impact on Rugby WA & junior clubs?
    Nedlands will pick up the tab for the whole union.

    Neddies are good like that.

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  15. #60
    Veteran Bakkies's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by valzc View Post
    If RA do end up being declared insolvent, how would that impact on Rugby WA & junior clubs?
    Hansie answered that a while ago. Have to find it. It affects insurance and having qualified referees. The JRUs can survive if the state union goes bust as it is a different entity but the National Union is different.

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    https://omny.fm/shows/the-alan-jones-breakfast-show/cameron-clyne

    Link to Senate Report http://www.aph.gov.au/senate_ca

    https://www.change.org/p/rugby-australia-petition-for-cameron-clyne-to-resign-as-chairman-of-the-rugby-australia-board

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