Top line-up for the game's fresh start
IAN HEADS
December 6, 2009
RUGBY league's leaders have promisingly nailed the first step as the game sets out on the pathway that will define its second century of existence.
The 16 NRL clubs have been summarily excused from duty when it comes to the all-important task of selecting the first eight members of the long-awaited independent commission.
And that's exactly as it should be, considering the historical penchant of clubs for the old standby of self-interest, a reality illuminated yet again by the decision (via club chief executives) during the week to flick-pass any expansion of the game for some years.
It may well turn out to be one of those decisions that is considered - then calmly set aside by the new commission. With no club input, the eight men (and/or women) of the C21 Commission will be picked instead by representatives of those on the opposite sides of the Great Divide - News Ltd and the ARL - in a final gesture before (hopefully) unity and professionalism reign at last, and the bells ring out.
The second leg of the Great Question remains unanswered: will the two sides at this last round-up have the guts and gumption, the genuine care for the game, to ignore past feuds and appeasing mates and politics and old favours owed - and pick instead a commission that is simply the best: a blue riband line-up of diverse, talented people to guide the game onwards and upwards in the face of a particularly challenging future?
Watch this space …
The gentler decisions have already been made. Legal eagles Colin Love (ARL) and David Gallop will stay on - Love for two years to chair the commission and Gallop, secure as NRL chief executive for three to five years.
That in place, now comes the harder, more lofty stuff. The quest must be for nothing less than recruitment of the best talent available, providing a commission that reflects a genuinely wide body of knowledge - sweeping all the way from deeply ingrained nous concerning the game itself to high-range media savvy, to financial expertise, to the ability to engage the community, to impeccable commercial and marketing skills, even to the rarified air of spectacular entrepreneurial flights.
This new and history-making body needs to be a resilient one, made up of tough, skilful and non-aligned people. Their job collectively will be to soar high above the other shareholders in rugby league's firmament - the clubs, players, coaches and referees - when it comes to the big calls, to at times make objective decisions that may bruise and disappoint but always with only one thing in mind: the greater good of the game.
To nudge the debate along, I'll respectfully throw in a name or two without notice from my distant vantage point of the recent seasons.
If the decision-makers can be big enough to forget the bloody noses of the Super League years, the bloke who now works from dawn to dusk on a magnificent Hunter Valley property should be a shoo-in for a call. If John Quayle, an outstanding general manager of the NSWRL (1983-96), still has enemies in the game, even they would surely agree that, in 2010, as a more polished and rounded campaigner, he possesses an unsurpassed pedigree for what is required, his skills honed in the recent years by his fine work on many of the world's major sporting festivals, starting with SOCOG at the Sydney Olympics of 2000.
Quayle loves rugby league from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. He should be invited back.
John Coates, the blunt and skilful Australian Olympic supremo, ranks as one of the world's premier sporting officials. Does he have an interest in rugby league? Well, yes - to the extent that he was even at one stage ABC radio's around-the grounds man at Lidcombe Oval!
Would he be interested in or available for the commission? I have no idea.
Shane Webcke, a highly successful businessman, ranks as one of the most interesting, intelligent and forthright players I have met in my (almost) 50 years in and around the game.
He has trodden on (official) toes in things he has said in his books but is deeply passionate about league, rails against misbehaviour by players, is both an internationalist and an expansionist - and is a tough hombre inclined to say exactly what he thinks.
As a recent retiree he would link the commission with the arcane world of the modern professional player, providing a valuable insight into that world.
Wayne Bennett rates him so highly he once declared: "If he decides to go into [Queensland] politics, I can see him becoming premier."
Other names have been aired these recent weeks and there seems no doubt the selection panel will have a rich crop from which to pick, with someone like the highly regarded Katie Page near the top of that list. If they can get it right - without succumbing to matey old ways - it's a wonderfully exciting prospect for the game.
Beneath the supreme decision-making body, the other stakeholders will make their contributions and their recommendations - the clubs, the coaches, the country and junior bodies, the technical panel.
But the big calls about the game will be made at an entirely different altitude, where the word "independent" is the key to all.
Rugby league's ghosts of administrators past may well be circling this coming Christmas. I'm sure that the likes of J.J. Giltinan, Vic Trumper, Harry Sunderland, Jersey Flegg, Bill Buckley and all the rest would be chuffed by the giant leap that the game they helped create and shape is about to take.
Foundation day of the commission will take its place alongside epic administrative milestones of earlier years: the brave beginning, via the formation of the NSWRL (1907) and the QRA (later QRL) in 1908; the birth of the wider reaching Australian RL Board of Control (later ARL) in 1924; the arrival of the CRL in 1934; the rise of Kevin Humphreys with his New Deal of 1973; John Quayle and his ambitious and further-sighted reconstruction and Newer Deal (1983); then, the pulling out of the rug via the disastrous Super League split of 1995-97 and the fragile restoration of "peace" in December 1997, leading to the formation of the NRL in 1998 in and tentative steps back towards dry land.
Praise in the current process is due for sure to the likes of Michael Searle, who has been at the heart of this latest revolution; Steve "Turvey" Mortimer, who has championed it whenever the chance has arisen; and this newspaper's Phil Gould, who has campaigned so hard - plus, seemingly joining the throng, today's officials, who have taken a collective deep breath and with some pragmatism accepted the reality of irresistible change, even though it will diminish the role of numbers of them.
Potentially these are good times for rugby league as it muscles up for the challenges of the other codes. The remnants of the Super League era are to be finally flushed away. To celebrate, I would do only one more thing: rebrand the "new game" - call it Rugby League Australia - and under that unified banner set the sails for the 21st century.
Ian Heads began his career as a sports journalist in 1963, and has written about and observed the passing parade of rugby league ever since.
;-)
