In the week leading up to the 11th round of Super Rugby, The Australian Rugby Union (ARU) announced that in the future players could play internationals for Australia if they played their club rugby abroad as long as they met a few key criteria. Those two clauses are that a player must have been previously contracted with the ARU for seven years and must also have earned 60 caps in that time. It was a huge announcement for the organisation and will almost certainly have consequences beyond just Matt Giteau, but really, whether you are in favour of the rule or not, my main takeaway was that it seemed inevitable. Pressure appeared to be building on the ARU, with Michael Cheika in particular seemingly leading the charge for more relaxed international selection policies; shown when he helped negotiate the ARU’s first joint ownership deal that will see Bernard Foley play in Japan while also appearing for Australia and The Waratahs.
As for this new rule, where in the past players could basically expect similar pay no matter where they played, making a decision to move more of a lifestyle choice, there are now two clear financial epicentres in rugby; Japan in the Southern Hemisphere and France in the north. When these focuses of wealth started to form player movement was initially slow (with a few notable exceptions) and most players who made the decision to leave their homeland were either past their prime or doing so for a quick payday before returning to their old club.
Now, with the 2015 World Cup looming, the standards have changed. As well as providing warm, comfortable retirement homes for the like of Dan Carter and Ma’a Nonu, France will also see Will Genia and Quade Cooper arrive in their mid-20s, with Bernard Foley moving to Japan at a similar age. This is proving to be a particular issue for Australia, who look set to lose the aforementioned stars as well as several other key players to rugby’s Nouveau Riche. These recent transactions in particular seem to have forced the ARU’s hand, with this announcement almost coming in tandem with news of Cooper’s two year pact with Toulon.
In Australia (and indeed a lot of the rest of the world) this rule has been nicknamed the Matt Giteau rule. On the surface this makes sense; Giteau is a fantastically talented and intelligent player who has been marooned on 92 caps for the Wallabies since announcing his move to Toulon in 2011, and with the announcement coming just months before the World Cup, the timing is hardly a coincidence. In my mind though this is really much more of a look to the future, a world where Genia, Cooper, Beale, O’Connor and potentially many more are plying their trade outside of Super Rugby. This fact is reflected in the way the rule is written, with the 7 year, 60 cap threshold targeting players such as Genia who leave Australia in their mid to late 20s as highly decorated internationals.
The player for whom these targets may prove hard to reach is Cooper himself. Given the timing of his announcement and the ARU’s, it would be reasonable to suspect he knew these new guidelines were about to come into effect (it may even help explain the slight delay in the official press release of his move). He is currently on 53 caps and with 11 internationals between now and his relocation to the south of France, it seems reasonable that he would just about make it to the all-important 60 mark. However, he has been in and out of the Australia squad over the past few years through everything from injuries and form to various off-field issues (although those appear to be a thing of the past) and given that he is currently out with a recurring shoulder issue, it’s beginning to look like a genuine possibility he won’t comply with the new rules presumably designed with him in mind.
Ultimately though, while you can critique and analyse the specifics of these new guidelines, the fact they exist at all speaks to the simple fact sportsmen have a painfully short amount of time to make as much money as they can, with very few enjoying the luxury of being able to make similar amounts once they retire. Therefore they, more than people in just about any other field, need to make decisions based on getting as much money as possible while teams are willing to pay them to sustain them following their playing careers.
At the moment that means moving to France or Japan, and international rugby federations around the world are starting to feel the consequences of this shift in power. Really all Australia have done is get ahead of the pack, while also providing concessions that seem more on their terms, allowing them to keep the allure of international rugby for the next generation of Wallabies, while also providing the carrot of a big payday once they’ve reached certain milestones. South Africa seem to have a similar (if more informal system) with players such as Bryan Habana and Bakkies Botha amassing more than 75 caps before moving to more lucrative pastures.
Ultimately, while England continue to hold out on making any changes to their own stringent selection criteria (i.e. PLAY IN ENGLAND OR DIE!!), in the long term the only country whose national team provides enough of a pull to keep its best talent away from the new big spenders in world rugby is probably New Zealand; while losing Charles Piutau is a big blow for Steve Hansen and co., they look likely to hold on to the genuine world class talents of Julian Savea and Brodie Retallick, along with their other regulars under the age of 30. It is a continuous struggle for the sport; with the desire to grow the game and increase revenue counterbalanced with more old-fashioned, patriotic values. Ultimately though, as the ARU have shown, it seems inevitable that new money will win out over old traditions, how rugby will continue to adapt to these changes is far murkier.
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