Aussie Pro Rugby
-
Just want to quash the current narrative about the Giteau Law being dropped...
The law was largely dropped during the 2023 RWC and basically fully abolished when Schmidt took over last year. RA have just reiterated recently that the law has been abolished, but the selection policy isn't changing moving forward, Schmidt has already more or less had a carte blanche to select who he wants.
So while there's an argument that we could see more players selected from overseas in the coming years due to the slow adjustment to the removal of the Giteau Law, that's likely going to come down to Les Kiss' personal selection policy. Schmidt has already said he's preferred to select local players where possible and I would be surprised if Kiss operated any differently.
@Mr-Fish said in Aussie Pro Rugby:
Schmidt has already said he's preferred to select local players where possible and I would be surprised if Kiss operated any differently.
A lot will depend on what happens after the 2027 home Rugby World Cup. Several crucial Wallaby players – Rob Valetini, Allan Alaalatoa, Angus Bell, Len Ikitau, Nick Frost, Tate McDermott, Jake Gordon, Carlo Tizzano, Billy Pollard – all have contracts that expire in 2027, with the Lions series and home World Cup some of the main reasons for them staying in the country. We've already seen that the Wallabies have issues with player depth.
What happens if even half of these players take overseas deals? Tupou, Skelton, Gleeson, and Hooper are already gone. Jorgensen and Lynagh are signed to 2026 and still need to agree to new deals. What is Rugby Australia’s negotiation leverage, an unwritten rule that local players will be preferred? The extra money from the Lions and home World Cup?
Again, I'm not saying that there's necessarily going to be a mass exodus, as overseas clubs aren't exactly flush with cash. But I do think scrapping the Giteau law is going to be impactful, especially after 2027.
-
Thought this was funny
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1TLDy48jJ4/?mibextid=wwXIfr
-
With Rugby Australia deciding to scrap the Giteau Law, I wanted to take a quick look at what can reasonably be expected to happen to the Australian SRP teams. There’s a pretty obvious precedent, South Africa scrapping their own restrictions on overseas selection in 2018 with the appointment of Rassie Erasmus.
Of course, there are some considerable differences between the two cases: the different status of rugby in South Africa and Australia, the South African shift in competitions and hemispheres in 2020, the economic collapse of the rugby market after Covid, you can go on for a while. I’m going to ignore all of this (for now), and just focus on what concretely happened in terms of player movement in South African rugby after 2018 and what this potentially means for Australian rugby in 2025 and beyond.
Returning to 2018
This is how the different South African franchises looked in the 2018 SR season, as far as Springboks-per-team was concerned.
It’s remarkable how evenly spread the distribution of Springboks was, at the time, each team having between 11 and 15 Boks available to them. Of course, there was still a considerable degree of difference in terms of quality and experience – Jamba Ulengo (1 cap) at the Bulls against someone like Frans Malherbe at the Stormers – but still, a considerable depth of talent and pedigree in each team.
So how did Rassie’s opening of the market impact this Springbok-presence at the South African franchises? Before we can look at the player transfers for the 2019 season, we need to look at how the market was before these restrictions were lifted.
For the 2017-18 season, 22 players had left their South African teams for an overseas club.
Of those 22 players, 10 had played for the Springboks, including some relatively high-profile names such as Jan Serfontein (Bulls to Montpellier) and Pat Lambie (Sharks to Racing 92). But both Serfontein and Lambie remained eligible for the Boks due to the 30-cap rule. Fringe Boks, however, like Faf de Klerk (Lions to Sale Sharks, 11 caps) and Cobus Reinach (Sharks to Northampton Saints, 10 caps) made themselves willingly ineligible, at the time, by moving overseas.
So, despite the restrictions, there was still plenty of movement among players for overseas contracts, including fringe Boks. With SA Rugby’s decision to scrap the limitations on overseas selection, players like de Klerk and Reinach became eligible again from 2018 onwards. So what happened in the first summer after these limitations were done away with?
In this first summer of the open market, the numbers remained remarkably consistent, with 20 players moving from South Africa to overseas teams, only 6 Boks leaving the Republic. Furthermore, most of these leaving Boks weren’t particularly high profile ones: Ruan Dreyer (Lions to Gloucester), Jaco Kriel (Lions to Gloucester), Rohan Janse van Rensburg (Lions to Sale Sharks), Nizaam Carr (Stormers to Wasps), and Raymond Rhule (Stormers to Grenoble). Only one – Franco Mostert to Gloucester – would be considered a crucial part of the Springboks, and his departure was largely influenced by Johan Ackermann going to Gloucester and taking a raft of Lions players with him.
This perhaps shouldn’t come as a surprise, since the changes to the eligibility-criteria were announced in May of 2018, when most players will have already signed their contract for next season. This should then be seen as a continuation of the market-profile of the 30-cap era, where some Boks decide to go overseas, as well as many fringe club players, looking for opportunities abroad.
The floodgates open
It was only in the next season that the new reality would hit, and boy, would it hit hard. For the 2019-2020 season, no less than 47 (!) players would leave South African shores for an overseas team. Of those 47, no less than 20 would be Springboks. (Sidenote: looking back, I think this mass exodus largely impacted Mark Robinson’s thinking in not particularly trying to retain the South African teams in Super Rugby. A short-sighted decision, perhaps.)
And these were not just any Boks, these were crucial players to the 2019 World Cup win: Lood de Jager (Sale Sharks), RG Snyman (Honda Heat), Duane Vermeulen (Kubota Spears), Handré Pollard (Montpellier), Jesse Kriel (Canon Eagles). And that’s just from the Bulls. Marx (NTT Shining Arcs), Etzebeth (Toulon), de Allende (Panasonic Wild Knights), they would all leave for more profitable overseas deals.
So the Australians can expect, not this summer, but the next one to be absolutely brutal, with European and Japanese teams strongly targeting top Australian talent, as well as this talent willing to grab better deals.
At the same time, players at the fringes of national selection also started to look for overseas deals, as they were no longer tied to the Springbok 30-cap rule. Talented players who created depth in the South African teams like Hanro Liebenberg (Leicester Tigers) and Jacques Vermeulen (Exeter Chiefs) also went to overseas teams, where they would form the backbone of Premiership contenders, instead of staying in South Africa, hoping for a Bok call-up.
2020-21: a slowing market
Thankfully perhaps, the player trajectory and the market would once again start to shift in the next season, meaning that there wasn’t an endless drain of talent. Instead, if we look at the player movements of the next few seasons, both the numbers of Boks and non-Boks going overseas would not reach the levels of 2019-20 again, returning rather to the levels of before 2018 (around 15 to 25 players leaving annually).
A large part of this has to do, of course, with the Covid-pandemic which ruined teams’ finances, with the effects of this market collapse still being felt today. A similar thing will, hopefully, not happen for the Australian case. But there were other factors which impacted this trend as well, which could also apply to Australian rugby.
One of these factors was the reality of having active internationals on the club’s books. As overseas teams became more and more aware that these Springboks would be away for a long time during the year – July and November Internationals, the Rugby Championship – their demand drastically dropped in the next few seasons. French teams especially, who have high requirements of their players in the nearly year-long Top 14, lost much of their appetite for high-profile South African players, as they would be gone for a long time as well as not perform (e.g. Etzebeth at Toulon and Kolisi at Racing 92) in the same way for their clubs as they did for the Springboks.
Another factor was private investment in South African rugby at home as well. With SA Rugby more open to the mechanisms of the open market, there also appeared more opportunities for private investment in South Africa itself, with rich benefactors and wealthy investment groups becoming large stakeholders at both the Bulls (Johann Rupert and Patrice Motsepe) and the Sharks (MVM Holdings). Players like Etzebeth, Kolisi, Esterhuizen and le Roux were brought back to the Republic, where their playing time was more carefully monitored and expectations weren’t quite as rigorous as they were overseas.
Interestingly then, the opening of the market didn’t necessarily lead to the mass exodus of Springboks as first feared. To the contrary, as the below table shows, there are actually more Springboks playing for South African teams in 2025 (59 players) than there were in 2018 (55 players).
Part of this is, of course, Rassie Erasmus’ policy of spreading his caps, which means that a lot more players get capped these days than before. But it also shows that (1) the overseas market doesn’t have a massive and endless appetite for internationally active players (emphasis on active), and (2) private investment can combat overseas market forces.
As a sidenote, comparing 2018 to 2025, it is interesting to see how the equal distribution of Springboks has vanished. Instead, we see the brutal mechanics of the open market at play, with a team like the Lions, with no private investment, lagging far behind the other teams, being instead forced to heavily invest in youth while typically losing their best players to either overseas teams or other South African franchises.
Lessons for Rugby Australia
So there are a few massively important lessons for the Wallabies and Rugby Australia here, I think. First of all, if the limitations on eligibility are scrapped, it is imperative that the Wallabies actually select from overseas. You have to show overseas clubs that you are going to use these players and you will enforce World Rugby regulations in order to do so. This has the effect of devaluing top Australian players, which will make sure that not all international-quality players are actually playing overseas.If, however, these scrapped criteria are just talk, then you’ll get the worst of both worlds: there will be no downside whatsoever to buying top Australian talent, which will mean that the Super Rugby Pacific-competition will haemorrhage both established Test stars as well as fringe talent, with no immediate way of getting either a good Test team or a talent-rich local competition. You have to have, paradoxically, a considerable cohort of overseas players in the Wallabies for your local competition to survive.
And secondly, private investment must be allowed and even encouraged. By doing this, you open up another avenue through which Australian players can eventually return home, should they wish, while making the local SR-teams more financially robust as well. There are plenty of rich benefactors in Australia who love their union; RA should tap into that resource as much as possible in order to make their own market positioning competitive.
South African Rugby has shown that opening up your selection policies can work but this also means that you open yourself up to the cold mechanisms of open market capitalism. There is no point in scrapping the eligibility-criteria and then just lightly dabbling your feet in the water. Rugby Australia have made their decision; now it is time to take the deep plunge.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
I think the situation in Australia is a lot different to SA.The Perth Force wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for a private benefactor; they are surviving, but sure aint thriving.
They can't even sign Australian contracted players right now, without paying a large premium.And . . . then there is a behemoth NRL in the back ground.
The next few seasons in Perth will probably tell us what the long term outcome for rugby (union) is in Australia.
Although still small when compared to Aussie rules; rugby union is actually a much larger sport (on the field) in Western Australia than rugby league,
This is the only state in Australia where this is the case.
So if the new Perth NRL franchise eclipses the Force, then the outlook for a quality domestic comp in Australia for Wallaby players to even play in wont be good.
This is not the case in SA,. SA will always have some sort of quality domestic comp. -
Breakdown - * = uncapped
Hookers
Josh Nasser, BPA, Billy PollardProps
Angus Bell, Zane Nonggorr, Tom Robertson, Aidan Ross*, James Slipper, Taniela TupouLocks
Nick Frost, Tom Hooper, LSL, Will Skelton, Jeremy WilliamsLoose Forwards
Nick CdC, Langi Gleeson, Fraser McReight, Carlo Tizzano, Rob Valetini, Harry WilsonScrumhalves
Ryan Lonergan*, Tate McDermott, Nic WhiteFlyhalves
Ben Donaldson, Tane Edmed, James O'ConnorCentres
Josh Flook, Len Ikitau, Hunter Paisami, JASWings
Max Jorgensen, Dylan Pietsch, Corey Toole*Fullbacks
Andrew Kellaway, Tom Wright -
Breakdown - * = uncapped
Hookers
Josh Nasser, BPA, Billy PollardProps
Angus Bell, Zane Nonggorr, Tom Robertson, Aidan Ross*, James Slipper, Taniela TupouLocks
Nick Frost, Tom Hooper, LSL, Will Skelton, Jeremy WilliamsLoose Forwards
Nick CdC, Langi Gleeson, Fraser McReight, Carlo Tizzano, Rob Valetini, Harry WilsonScrumhalves
Ryan Lonergan*, Tate McDermott, Nic WhiteFlyhalves
Ben Donaldson, Tane Edmed, James O'ConnorCentres
Josh Flook, Len Ikitau, Hunter Paisami, JASWings
Max Jorgensen, Dylan Pietsch, Corey Toole*Fullbacks
Andrew Kellaway, Tom Wright -
@booboo He has made himself available for the Rugby Championship following Jake Gordons injury. Would be saving the Wallabies from having to bring in a second uncapped halfback alongside Ryan Lonergan. The only other capped halfback is Issak Fines-Leleiwasa but he seems to have switched his focus to Fiji having signed with the Drua. Expecting to see Lonergan get a decent shot this Rugby Championship
-
@booboo He has made himself available for the Rugby Championship following Jake Gordons injury. Would be saving the Wallabies from having to bring in a second uncapped halfback alongside Ryan Lonergan. The only other capped halfback is Issak Fines-Leleiwasa but he seems to have switched his focus to Fiji having signed with the Drua. Expecting to see Lonergan get a decent shot this Rugby Championship
-
Breakdown - * = uncapped
Hookers
Josh Nasser, BPA, Billy PollardProps
Angus Bell, Zane Nonggorr, Tom Robertson, Aidan Ross*, James Slipper, Taniela TupouLocks
Nick Frost, Tom Hooper, LSL, Will Skelton, Jeremy WilliamsLoose Forwards
Nick CdC, Langi Gleeson, Fraser McReight, Carlo Tizzano, Rob Valetini, Harry WilsonScrumhalves
Ryan Lonergan*, Tate McDermott, Nic WhiteFlyhalves
Ben Donaldson, Tane Edmed, James O'ConnorCentres
Josh Flook, Len Ikitau, Hunter Paisami, JASWings
Max Jorgensen, Dylan Pietsch, Corey Toole*Fullbacks
Andrew Kellaway, Tom Wright -
Been thinking about the general positioning and talk of rugby in Australia.
For all the talk of rugby dying, or being 'back', I actually think we've found our level over the last 5-10 years and it's where we will stay.
We're a second tier rugby nation, on and off the field. There's enough support to sustain a viable Super competition, 6-8 Wallabies games a year and the odd Lions tour or World Cup. We will field competitive rugby sides that may have the odd good spell but will never be dominant.
Within the sporting landscape here, our place is to sit below AFL, NRL and cricket but above basketball, soccer and netball.
It's not super interesting to discuss, but I think that's how it is. And I'm largely OK with it, but it does mean accepting that a World Cup win in my lifetime may be a bit of a long shot.
@barbarian said in Aussie Pro Rugby:
I am 37. Maybe slightly pessimistic. But I'd peg it at maybe 20% chance? We weren't that far away in 2015, if you get a good draw and the bounce of the ball you never know.
Your at home in the next one, and have an way above average 1st XV right at the moment, so a short term approach and build to 2027 gives the Wallbies a real shot, IMHO. I'm not saying they are favourites, but there is a lot of draw luck that goes into it (especially to get to the final) & then that basically just gives you a one off game against the best team in the tournament. At home.
The future will be what it is, but the next 2 years are firmly within control to have a real shot at taking out the big one.
@MiketheSnow said in Aussie Pro Rugby:
I’m 59 this year and still think Wales can do it in my lifetime
Seismic changes required in Welsh rugby for this.
I think even if you and and Barb's swapped ages, I'd still put the money on him.
-
-
@KiwiMurph lol just wait. They'll blow it all
-
@KiwiMurph said in Aussie Pro Rugby:
@NTA said in Aussie Pro Rugby:
@KiwiMurph lol just wait. They'll blow it all
Ever the optimist
Realist; I've seen this people operate up close
The NRL have goals for a $300M asset base, and they'll get there by investing in property across the land and various other enterprises.
Rugby Australia - despite all these white-collar graduates of the finest educational institutions money can (and does) buy - are just now debt free after years of boom and bust, driven by bad negotiation and a lack of nous; it's like they can't operate outside an old boys network.
Here's a micro-example of who I'm talking about:
