Wayne Bennett says Rugby360 league is a Super League-level threat to NRL
Many high-profile rugby league figures have dismissed R360 as a “pie-in-the-sky” disrupter, but Wayne Bennett warned the NRL could be torn apart Super League-style if they are complacent.
Wayne Bennett has warned the R360 threat is “huge” and called for an NRL top-up scheme to stop Payne Haas, Reece Walsh and Nathan Cleary being poached by the Super League-style rebel competition.
Bennett, one of the code’s most powerful voices, has urged ARL Commission boss Peter V’landys to hold an urgent summit and proposed a radical payment plan to keep the biggest stars in rugby league.
The NRL’s greatest coach likened R360 to the lucrative LIV golf circuit that is backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which is worth more than $US900 billion.
Now Middle-Eastern billions are spreading their tentacles to the mooted rebel rugby competition which has already begun targeting NRL stars, including Ryan Papenhuyzen and Roger Tuivasa-Sheck.
Bennett was coaching the Broncos when a trio of his best players dropped code-switch bombshells on the NRL in three consecutive years.
Bennett’s star back-rower Brad Thorn quit the Broncos after their 2000 premiership win to chase his All Blacks dream, before champion wingers Wendell Sailor (2001) and Lote Tuqiri (2002) walked away to represent the Wallabies at the 2003 Rugby World Cup.
Many rugby league figures, including V’landys, have dismissed R360 as a “pie-in-the-sky” disrupter, but Bennett warned the NRL could be torn apart Super League-style if they are complacent.
“It’s a huge threat, absolutely,” Bennett said.
“The NRL is the toughest competition in the world with the best athletes.
“We are absolutely under threat.
“We cannot ignore it.
“I don’t know how we combat it but I will say this - the game needs to come together sooner rather than later in terms of the CEOs and the game itself.
“Let’s talk about what the hell is going on out there.
“Have the conversation we need to have with each other and discuss how do we stop it, what do we do?
“They will be looking at the star players like Cleary, Latrell (Mitchell) or Reece Walsh, they are the ones that the fans pay their money to watch.
“If we lost just 10 or 12 players like them, it will leave a massive hole in our competition.
“Look at the golf. Who would have thought LIV would be a threat but it is. The amount of money they have paid, we will never be able to match them if they (R360) are serious about the amount of money they have to spend.
“Where does this end for the NRL?
“The game has to address this and come up with a plan.
“We’d be foolish to suck our thumbs and hope to God it goes away.”
According to British media, R360 has acquired the necessary funding from Saudi Arabia, the UK and United States to kick-off in 2026 with aims to be profitable by 2027.
Rugby Australia successfully used its top-up payments scheme to lure rugby league stars Sailor, Tuqiri, Mat Rogers, Karmichael Hunt and Israel Folau to the 15-a-side code.
NRL: The NRL 360 panel discuss Kalyn Ponga's potential move to French or Japanese rugby as he considers a code switch after a tough run in Newcastle.
Bennett believes the NRL should consider a similar system whereby each of the 17 clubs, plus incoming franchises Perth and Papua New Guinea by 2028, nominate a marquee player to have their contracts beefed-up by League Central funding.
Bennett says the NRL, which boasted a profit of $62.3 million last year and has net assets of $320m, is now in a position to top-up the code’s true elite to stave off the R360 poaching threat.
Asked about the NRL providing financial assistance with marquee players such as Cleary and Walsh, Bennett said: “Absolutely, there’s a lot of things you can do.
“That (a NRL top-up scheme) is an option.
“If we don’t sit down and talk about it and recognise these raids can happen to us, it will be too late and the stars could be gone.
“The issue here, too, is the player managers. If an agent has a player on $1 million in the NRL and he could get $3 million with rugby, it’s going to be hard to convince the player to stay in the NRL.
“I don’t know much about this R360 competition, but we are the biggest target. It won’t impact on Aussie rules or soccer, it will impact the NRL most.
“They will be coming after our best players and they’ll only be offering the big money to our best players. They won’t be chasing players 10 and 11 on an NRL roster.
"When you’re going to watch someone play, you’re not going to watch 10 guys that no-one knows a lot about. You want to watch the big stars.
“And if they don’t have the stars, they’ll be taking our stars.
“Do you think Payne Haas couldn’t go over to rugby tomorrow and play breakaway in rugby union? He would be a success in rugby. Our best players like Haas or Cleary would handle rugby easily.
“The one great thing about the NRL is the athletes we produce and they need athletes. They could teach them how to pick up rugby very quickly.
“Let’s not forget we lost guys like Wendell, Lote Tuqiri, Mat Rogers, Karmichael Hunt, Israel Folau, they all went to rugby and they played for Australia.
“Joseph Suaalii is playing centre for the Wallabies right now - he was in the NRL last year.
“Don’t think they won’t be buying them because they can’t change them, because they can.
“The game is flush with income these days, maybe we look at a plan where the game pays extra money to the best players to keep them in our game.”
V’landys says the NRL won’t be jumping at shadows amid talk of R360 chiefs descending on the Telstra Premiership like Super League recruiters operating by stealth, armed with massive contracts to defect.
“It (the R360 threat) has generated a life of its own but 50 per cent of it is fiction,” V’landys said.
“Anyone can come up with these schemes.
“I’ve seen hundreds of them, but it doesn’t mean they will come to fruition.
“Once they do the business models, they might say we can’t make money out of this.
“How would an NRL player like it if they (R360) went broke halfway through it?
“I’m not worried at all that Nathan Cleary would go. If there was something solid, then I would be worried 24-7, but I’ve seen these schemes all the time.
“Some are credible. Some aren’t.
“Time will tell if this is credible or not.
South Sydney chief executive Blake Solly echoed the sentiments of his club coach Bennett.
“There is not a huge amount of information available about R360, or the realistic prospects of it getting started,” he said.
“But we shouldn’t be complacent or lazy when it comes to any competition for the NRL.
“The ARLC, players and clubs have worked extremely hard to put the sport in such a strong position.
“We need to be alive to any threat, and make sure it’s neutralised.”
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