NRL cash to hit rugby hard again

Sonny Bill Williams in action against the Chiefs. File photo / NZ Herald

An old conflict rugby bosses thought they had won is set to flare again now that the NRL will almost double its salary cap on the back of a massively improved broadcast deal.

From 2013, NRL clubs are likely to have a new budget of $7m to spend on players-almost double the $4.3m they have at the moment.

For the first time in almost 20 years, league will have the financial clout to not only hold its best players but to also lure the biggest names in world rugby.

Already under siege from Europe and Japan, the last thing the New Zealand Rugby Union needed was another predator in its own territory.

But, with the NRL on track to secure a $1bn, five-year broadcast deal, there is no escaping the fact that a once bitter war will be rekindled. Look across the globe and there are former stars of league now setting the rugby world on fire. Sonny Bill Williams and Brad Thorn in New Zealand; Chris Ashton in England and not so long ago there was Lote Tuqiri, Wendell Sailor and Matt Rogers in Australia.

For the last 10 years rugby has been able to steal league's best and sometimes it looked like they were doing so just because they could. Sometimes it felt it was merely revenge for the way league had so callously raided rugby in the 1980s and early 1990s. League took a Viking approach to rugby back then-pillaging at will and taking joy in the near decimation of its rival code. It was all so easy back then-rugby was amateur and some of the best players in the world lived on the bones of their backsides.

John Gallagher, Frano Botica, Matthew Ridge, Craig Innes, Inga Tuigamala, Shane Howarth and John Timu all defected - to name a few. The Welsh lost, among others, Jonathan Davies and Terry Holmes; inside backs who had the ability to be legends. Scott Gibbs and Scott Quinnell also disappeared to the north of England for a while damaging the national team. It was like shooting fish in a barrel so, when rugby finally turned professional in 1996, momentum shifted. The 15-man code took revenge. Rugby had old money behind it, a clean-cut image, a fascinating breed of athletes and greater geographic reach.

There was some bitterness at the way league had seen rugby as nothing more than a nursery. The Welsh immediately retrieved their former stars when they had the money to do so. England went aggressive-signing Jason Robinson, Robbie Paul and Barry Jon Mather while the Australian Rugby Union made it a stated aim to poach from the NRL-snaring Tuqiri, Sailor, Rogers and others, including Timana Tahu and the Rebels' Jarrod Saffy. Rugby basked in its new wealth and spending power, seemingly believing that the balance of power was irreversibly in its favour. League, it seemed, was forever destined to be the poor relation.

All that is about to change; code war is about to break out again and New Zealand, as always, will be a key battleground. The NRL clubs will have more money and bigger squads; the money needed to allow teams to contract 30 rather than 25 players. They will need ever more players. The threat to New Zealand rugby will exist on two levels; the professional mid-tier will become even more vulnerable.

The top-ranked All Blacks are well enough looked after but those on the periphery may start to see the NRL as a big step up. An occasionally-selected All Black could be well looked after financially by an NRL club once the new deal kicks in. But more of a worry will be the NRL's ability to infiltrate the age-grade ranks, make big promises and run off with rugby's future stars. League already has a keen appreciation of New Zealand's schoolboy rugby stocks. Matthew Duffie debuted for he Kiwis in the recent Anzac test having been a schoolboy rugby protégé. He was recruited by the Melbourne Storm from the St Kentigern First XV. "The NRL clubs are interested in athletes," says St Kentigern director of sport Martin Piaggi.

"It is a more common thing now for some rugby players to go from rugby to professional league clubs without really ever having played. Rugby is in actual fact probably a better vehicle for players to be seen by NRL scouts. Rugby can't afford to be complacent or underestimate the threat NRL clubs will soon pose.

In the case of Duffie, it is believed the Auckland Rugby Union became interested after they learned the Storm were circling. In the race for young talent there are rarely prizes Union made it a stated aim to poach