The Times, Thursday 11th October 2001

[A man amongst boys]

<table cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 width=400 border=0> <tbody> <tr> <td valign=top>RFL left to count the cost as Australia pull out of tour</td></tr> <tr> <td height=8></td></tr> <tr> <td valign=top>BY CHRISTOPHER IRVINE</td></tr> <tr> <td height=8></td></tr> <tr> <td valign=top width=400>SOMEONE joked on Monday that Andy Farrell, the Great Britain captain, should perform a chicken impression on camera to goad the Kangaroos, Australia’s rugby league world champions, into fulfilling their seven-match tour. No one took it seriously until the announcement from Sydney yesterday that plunged the sport into renewed difficulties. RFL officials had gone to bed reasonably certain that the 24-strong party would set off on Saturday, only to be woken by the news that Australia were pulling the plug on their first tour for seven years. As well as doing incalculable damage to rugby league’s already tattered international credibility and delivering a devastating financial blow, the decision is bewildering. Why should bombs falling on Afghanistan disturb Australia’s travel arrangements? There is, after all, another way round the world. As for terrorist fears in the United Kingdom, mainland IRA bombings were never mentioned in the past. And where the Kangaroos fear to tread, touring New South Wales Police and Queensland Universities sides have voiced no such qualms. Not to denigrate the genuine concerns of the five players, including Brad Fittler, the captain, that apparently dictated this extraordinary decision, but as well as giving in to terrorism, its impact on an already struggling game is severe. Instead of an expected £2 million overall income, the debt-ridden RFL faces additional losses to the estimated £500,000 shortfall on last year’s World Cup. Redundancies at its Red Hall headquarters in Leeds seem inevitable. A prospective new sponsor has been left high and dry, as well as BBC and Sky Sports, who were to broadcast the internationals in Bolton, Huddersfield and Wigan next month. Cancelled bookings and ticket refunds add up to a huge cost that the league’s insurance seems unlikely to cover under an act of war. Last night, the RFL was desperately canvassing for alternative opponents, among them New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, while appealing to the Australian Rugby League (ARL) to perform an about-turn, however unlikely that appears. The ARL has spoken of resurrecting its tour plans next year, but as New Zealand are due to visit, that is unlikely. Chris Caisley, the Super League chairman, accused the Australians of reacting to the balance sheet as much as safety fears. “While we can understand their concerns, the Wallabies rugby union team are still planning to come to Britain,” he said. “I suspect the rugby league decision has been influenced by other factors. There isn’t a massive financial gain for them and I think this has impacted upon their decision.” Unlike its league counterpart, the Australian Rugby Union (ARU) is insisting at this stage that its European tour party, due to arrive in ten days and accompanied by a leading security officer from the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, is on. “Unless the ARL is being told something we aren’t hearing, nothing has sent shock waves through us to force us to call off the tour,” John O’Neill, the ARU chairman, said. The prospect of the Wallabies proceeding with fixtures against England, Wales and France will only heighten anger and embarrassment felt over the Kangaroos’ “ducking of their responsibility”, as one RFL official described it. From the moment the most senior players — Fittler, Andrew Johns, Darren Lockyer, Shane Webcke and Robbie Kearns — told officials that they did not want to go, the tour was doomed. Their influence swung an initial vote of 19-5 in favour of going to 12-12, amid fears at the ARL of mass withdrawals if it continued regardless. Wives and girlfriends, whose fears were splashed over the back page of a Sydney newspaper, played a significant part. Johns said: “The consensus was most of the family blokes were really worried and the single ones wanted to go, but common sense prevailed.” One of the tour rookies, Jason Ryles, said earlier: “I’ll go no matter what. I’ll play in Afghanistan if they want.” Colin Love, the ARL chairman, said: “I can understand the concerns of players and their families. I know for many it was their first opportunity to tour and that they also feel a profound sense of disappointment. We are still in the early days of this conflict and whilst there is so much uncertainty it’s prudent we do not go.” His British counterpart, Sir Rodney Walker, was less than impressed. “Some of the implications are very serious for both the RFL and the international game,” he said. “There’s no doubt the decision is a bitter blow. While we can understand to an extent players’ concern about the world situation, we’ve sought to assure them that life in Britain is carrying on normally.” David Waite, the Britain coach, delivered the news at a training session to the 11 squad members not involved in preparations for Saturday’s Grand Final between Bradford Bulls and Wigan Warriors. “They’re naturally disappointed,” he said. “They’re no different to anyone who was looking forward to the ultimate challenge.” The prevailing gloom was summed up by Farrell. “The best chance to prove ourselves against them has been taken from us,” he said. “I can’t imagine the roles being reversed, with us not going there.”</td></tr></tbody></table>

 

[G@v]

<u>The Independent</u>
Australian about-turn has bitter after taste
The Kangaroos' cancellation of their first tour to Britain for seven years
has crippling financial implications for rugby league
By Dave Hadfield
11 October 2001
There was a black, bitter little joke doing the rounds in British rugby
league circles yesterday. It took the form of a rhetorical question: "Does
kangaroo steak taste of chicken?"
The game in this country is entitled to be bitter. The decision of the
Australian Rugby League to pull the plug on its first full tour to this
country for seven years, because of some imagined threat to their safety
here or in transit, is a hugely damaging blow - one from which it will find
it desperately difficult to recover.
International tours have been one of the main casualties of the years of
turmoil following the birth of Super League and the importance of this one
was both financial and talismanic.
The Rugby Football League, the already beleaguered governing body in this
country, is crippled by accumulated debt. Although plans for this tour were
deliberately scaled down to take the three Tests to modest venues at Bolton,
Huddersfield and Wigan, the minimum of £2m it could have been expected to
bring through the turnstiles would have helped enormously, even after paying
overheads and splitting the residue with the Australians.
The RFL's development programmes throughout the British Isles, as well as
support for initiatives beyond, depend on its financial viability. What has
merely been difficult to fund of late might now prove impossible. The
doomsday scenario is that the League could be rendered incapable of
fulfilling basic functions, such as providing referees.
When the RFL's chairman, Sir Rodney Walker, says that he hopes the
Australians realise the effect their decision will have, he says it through
clenched teeth. The simple answer is that they - or enough of them to carry
the day - clearly do not care very much and their obsession with their own
domestic issues only consolidates rugby league's self-defeating image as a
parochial game.
The RFL was due to announce a sponsor for the Test series next week - a
blue-chip multinational it had to work fiendishly hard to bring on board in
the current climate. The task of attracting any further backers to the game
suddenly looks harder still; the first question they ask is how any recent
projects have fared.
The clubs - St Helens, Leeds, Bradford and Wigan - who were due to play the
tourists will also take a financial beating. Wigan's estimate of their total
income from a 20,000-plus gate at the JJB Stadium plus the spin-offs is
around £500,000 - more money lost to the game, which it cannot afford.
But the damage goes deeper than the balance-sheet. After the financial
failure of last year's World Cup it was vital for rugby league to show that
it could stage a major international event successfully.
Through no direct fault of its own, the game here will again be unable to do
so. The feeling that this failure is due in large part to a lack of
commitment at the Australian end of the bargain will only intensify if the
Wallabies screw up their courage and get on the plane.
It is even more galling that it is players of the on-field courage and
commitment of Brad Fittler, Darren Lockyer, Andrew Johns and Shane Webcke
who were the prime movers in getting the tour called off. British fans will
not feel quite the same in future about them and their playing achievements.
All the interested parties in this country were putting their heads together
yesterday and again today to see whether anything can be salvaged from the
wreckage. The insurance implications are still uncertain, with the cover
against postponements possibly negated by the usual exclusion clause for
acts of war.
If, in that case, they still have to pay for the venues, the feeling is that
they might as well stage some sort of match, possibly "home internationals"
featuring opposition like France and Ireland - who were quick to offer their
services - or Great Britain against a side of British-based Australians and
New Zealanders, or against a full Kiwi side, due to tour next year. The
logistics of getting them here at short notice - even assuming that they,
unlike their quaking cousins across the Tasman, were brave enough to come -
would be genuinely frightening.
Other suggestions are that the full Test side could take over the Under-21s
tour to South Africa or even that it could turn the tables on Australia by
going there for a quick-hit, two-Test visit.
But there is a possible final indignity lurking behind that idea. Having
thrown the world game into chaos by their unwillingness to travel, Australia
would want the RFL to underwrite that trip so that any loss incurred by
unscheduled, largely unpromoted games would be ours, and ours alone.
You can already hear the grateful chorus echoing across the rugby league
heartlands of the north of England. "Thanks, mate, thanks a bloody lot."