"The Rugby War"

[Knight87]

I was just reading through a book called "The Rugby War" by Peter Fitzsimmons and I was wandering (a thought came into my head): Is it a coincidence that Rugby Union went professional (whatever you mean by that) during the same time the Super League war began? Infact, why and how did Union go professional?

 

[The Preacher]

I was just reading through a book called "The Rugby War" by Peter Fitzsimmons and I was wandering (a thought came into my head): Is it a coincidence that Rugby Union went professional (whatever you mean by that) during the same time the Super League war began? Infact, why and how did Union go professional?

They started paying them by contract rather than putting wads of cash into their shoes in the dressing room for when they got dressed after the game !!! :shock:
The ARU thought it was better to say they were contracted rather than having the other codes laughing at them all the time !!!:lol:

 

[Kurt Angle]

A lot of anti-News Ltd people will point the 1995, the SL war and WRC causing them to go pro.

This is not the case.

The reasoning behind RU going professional dates back to early 1994.

the UK signed itself up to a whole bunch of EU laws, including anti-discrimination... and it involved the bit where no body can receive government funds if it implements certain forms of discrimination.

One of these anti-discrimination protection rulings was freedom of association.

How this impacted on RU was that if a RU body banned a player for going to RL, that player could sue them if they wished to return, thus the sporting funding received from the governments would have to be withheld. Obviously RU could no longer ban players.

Therefore if they remained amatuer, any RU player who wanted to try a pro career could easily walk into a RL club, try his hand at it, and if successful.. sure they could stay, and if they found out it wasn't for them, freely return to RU with no fuss.

Thus to prevent all the talent going to RL, RU decided to go professional as well.

 

[The Preacher]

What a load of "beating round the bush" sh!t.

 

[Mr Angry]

You mean when they went against everthing they stand for and started paying poeple to play - 100 odd years after League knew it was the right thing to do.

 

[The Preacher]

You mean when they went against everthing they stand for and started paying poeple to play - 100 odd years after League knew it was the right thing to do.

Oh they were paying them before that Mr.Angry, it was just "under the table", or should I say,"in the shoe".
As self rightous as the "leather patch" brigade tried to make out their game was, amatuer it wasn't. Far, far from it !!!

 

[joshreading]

As far as I was aware the main pressure was the rise of truly professional RL in Super League and pay TV. Really RL prior to union going pro was still by and large semi pro so the temptation was not that big but when you go totally pro on large wages the nature would have changed FAR MORE into the hands of RL so in response to this NSWRU was the first to go openly pro.

Pro union was inevitable but RL helped in forcing the issue.

 

[RL1908]

A lot of anti-News Ltd people will point the 1995, the SL war and WRC causing them to go pro.

This is not the case.

The reasoning behind RU going professional dates back to early 1994.

the UK signed itself up to a whole bunch of EU laws, including anti-discrimination... and it involved the bit where no body can receive government funds if it implements certain forms of discrimination.

One of these anti-discrimination protection rulings was freedom of association.

How this impacted on RU was that if a RU body banned a player for going to RL, that player could sue them if they wished to return, thus the sporting funding received from the governments would have to be withheld. Obviously RU could no longer ban players.

Therefore if they remained amatuer, any RU player who wanted to try a pro career could easily walk into a RL club, try his hand at it, and if successful.. sure they could stay, and if they found out it wasn't for them, freely return to RU with no fuss.

Thus to prevent all the talent going to RL, RU decided to go professional as well.

That is all true, but without the emergence of Super League & pay-tv (particularly where it was going to quickly take up RU players in Australia, NZ and even Sth Africa), there would have been no compelling reason for RU authorities to seriously, urgently and financially, embrace professionalism - the speed with which they did embrace professionalism was generated by pay-tv (including the creation of the Super 12 & Tri-Nations).

[Sorry Josh - didn't see your reply before I posted - totally agree with you.]

 

[nadera78]

There were a few things. A guy in New Zealand was banned for something or other and he took the authorities to court for loss of earnings! nice, seeing as he was supposedly amateur.

In the UK, a parliamentary committee had been looking into union's activities towards RL in terms of banning players and what not. These guys were also asking questions about the payment of players in union and put the taxman onto it. Te Inland Revenue announced that they were to launch an inquiry into 'amateurism' in union. Hey presto they decided to go pro.

South Africa, NZ and France had for a long time seen the players get paid a lot of money. In the UK it was usually a big, fat expenses account and jobs with big firms, jobs that the players were often not up to and infact mostly they did just a day or two a week, for full salary. Jason Leonard famously went form being a carpenter to being a city wizz.

 

[SteveM]

In the UK, a parliamentary committee had been looking into union's activities towards RL in terms of banning players and what not. These guys were also asking questions about the payment of players in union and put the taxman onto it. Te Inland Revenue announced that they were to launch an inquiry into 'amateurism' in union. Hey presto they decided to go pro.

South Africa, NZ and France had for a long time seen the players get paid a lot of money. In the UK it was usually a big, fat expenses account and jobs with big firms, jobs that the players were often not up to and infact mostly they did just a day or two a week, for full salary. Jason Leonard famously went form being a carpenter to being a city wizz.

That's got to be the worst example of a post ever !!!. Absolute garbage.

 

[Paley]

Jason Leonard didn't become a city whizz - you are thinking of Peter Winterbottom who was a farmer but when he went to play union for Harlequins he suddenly became a eurobonds dealer.

Union was never amateur - it was often very lucrative.

 

[Ebony]

Edited for unsubstainiated lying.

 

[Turdy Angle]

Rugby went professional because Kerry Packer wanted to start up a professional rugby competition in the SH .
There was a period where All Blacks, Springboks and Wallabies turn against each others and their union to sign with Packer .
The SARU and NZRU ask Sean Fitspactrick and Francois Pienaar who happen to be captains of their national team at the time to help persuade their teammates to sign with with News Limited and their national rugby body .
The end of WRC and Kerry Packer was near after News Limited sign a huge multi million dollar deal with ARU, SARU and NZRU to form SANZAR and start the Super 12 and Tri Nations .
All this were happening in front of the NH nations who were watching with interest of the outcome and even England and Ireland were still trying to keep their amateur status .
A meeting at the IRB headquaters after News limited deal with the SH nations was decided that Rugby is now a fully professional Sport .

All this bullsh*t about EU and blah blah is just that . Even a blind mice could see what was happening before our eyes prior to 1995 when Packer wanted to move in on rugby after Murdoch's attempt to take hold of rugby league .

 

[crusader-eel]

John O'Neill's book mentions the proposed World Rugby Championship and it's large part in forcing the ARU to go professional. The resentment towards Phil Kearns, who apparently tried to persuade players to sign with WRC, comes through pretty strongly in the book.

Pretty good read though.

 

[Paley]

Rugby went professional because Kerry Packer wanted to start up a professional rugby competition in the SH .

According to the IRB rugby had been played professionally since 1895.

 

[shaggy]

their is a documentry about the book the rugby war airing at i think 8:30pm, thursday night on the abc

 

[Turdy Angle]

A lot of anti-News Ltd people will point the 1995, the SL war and WRC causing them to go pro.

This is not the case.

The reasoning behind RU going professional dates back to early 1994.

the UK signed itself up to a whole bunch of EU laws, including anti-discrimination... and it involved the bit where no body can receive government funds if it implements certain forms of discrimination.

One of these anti-discrimination protection rulings was freedom of association.

How this impacted on RU was that if a RU body banned a player for going to RL, that player could sue them if they wished to return, thus the sporting funding received from the governments would have to be withheld. Obviously RU could no longer ban players.

Therefore if they remained amatuer, any RU player who wanted to try a pro career could easily walk into a RL club, try his hand at it, and if successful.. sure they could stay, and if they found out it wasn't for them, freely return to RU with no fuss.

Thus to prevent all the talent going to RL, RU decided to go professional as well.

Watch tonights rugby show about it at 8:30 pm . Its about the real events that took place . Not this fantasyland story you post on here .

 

[Turdy Angle]

A lot of anti-News Ltd people will point the 1995, the SL war and WRC causing them to go pro.

This is not the case.

The reasoning behind RU going professional dates back to early 1994.

the UK signed itself up to a whole bunch of EU laws, including anti-discrimination... and it involved the bit where no body can receive government funds if it implements certain forms of discrimination.

One of these anti-discrimination protection rulings was freedom of association.

How this impacted on RU was that if a RU body banned a player for going to RL, that player could sue them if they wished to return, thus the sporting funding received from the governments would have to be withheld. Obviously RU could no longer ban players.

Therefore if they remained amatuer, any RU player who wanted to try a pro career could easily walk into a RL club, try his hand at it, and if successful.. sure they could stay, and if they found out it wasn't for them, freely return to RU with no fuss.

Thus to prevent all the talent going to RL, RU decided to go professional as well.

There was no EU laws . There was no Superleague . It was all on Stealing Rugby tonight .;-)

 

[Turdy Angle]

As far as I was aware the main pressure was the rise of truly professional RL in Super League and pay TV. Really RL prior to union going pro was still by and large semi pro so the temptation was not that big but when you go totally pro on large wages the nature would have changed FAR MORE into the hands of RL so in response to this NSWRU was the first to go openly pro.

Pro union was inevitable but RL helped in forcing the issue.

No . It was on Stealing Rugby tonight . ;-)

 

[SpaceMonkey]

Lol TA you can't have watched things too closely. Stealing Rugby clearly stated at the start of the programme that Super League provided the initial impetus to Rugby turning professional because of the massive increase in salaries that were suddently of offer in RL and the resulting increase in RU players looking to switch codes. The Unions move to professionalism and the formation of the rebel WRC organisation both occurred as a flow-on from Superleague.