Rugby League: Freeman wary about filling Aussie breach

Kiwi coach Gary Freeman is happy to tour Britain, but will follow the wishes of his players.

The New Zealand Rugby League received an 11th-hour invitation yesterday to fill the breach left by Australia's cancellation of their scheduled tour.

Player-power was behind the Australian decision, with a group of senior players expressing concern over safety in the wake of last month's terrorist attacks in the United States and the American retaliation in Afghanistan.

The tour was called off when the players split 12-12. An original 19-5 vote to go evaporated as the senior players influenced their younger team-mates.

Freeman said he was seeking an assurance that next year's Kiwis tour of Britain would not be scrapped if the team replaced the Kangaroos.

"There are a lot of things that have got to be taken into consideration ... but the players are the ones I am concerned about most," he said.

"They've all got to be contacted. A lot of them have been out of football for a long time.

"The other part is getting them together and speaking to their wives.

"Over the next 48 hours they've got to sit down with their families, their mums and dads, and say, 'Look, this is the request that's been put to us'.

"Ultimately, it's in the players' hands."

The intention is for the Kiwis to play the entire Australian tour, which was to include three tests and three club matches against Leeds, Bradford and Wigan.

Freeman said it was an honour to be asked to fill the breach, but it had to be weighed up how beneficial such a tour would be for New Zealand.

A tour beginning almost immediately on limited preparation posed extreme difficulties.

Paramount for Freeman would be talking to New Zealand's England-based players who could, for logistical reasons, form the backbone of the Kiwis if the tour is accepted.

"The next 48 hours is going to be very demanding for everyone involved," Freeman said.

He is likely to hit an obstacle with the New Zealand Warriors, who are understood to be reluctant to release their players.

The chairman of the New Zealand Rugby League, Selwyn Pearson, said he had spoken to all six board members and most were in favour of making the tour, though they wanted guarantees.

Those included safety assurances, arrangement of travel insurance, and finances.

The feeling was that any tour should not cost the NZRL money.

English-based Kiwi Robbie Paul encouraged the Kiwis to make the tour.

Based in the northern town of Bradford, Paul said last night that life was going on as normal, despite the attacks on Afghanistan.

In Australia, a senior Kiwi, Stephen Kearney, decided immediately that he would not go, mainly because of the imminent arrival of his second child.

"But generally, I think our players' concerns are much like the Australian players," he said. "I don't think [the tour] is an option, really."

Kearney said he had spoken to a couple of other players, who had both expressed concern.

One of them had told him he would definitely not tour.

The Kangaroos came under fire on Australian talkback radio yesterday, with some callers citing the fact that ballerinas, Aboriginal singers and theatre actors decided to go ahead with a month-long Australian artistic tour of New York only days after the September 11 attacks.

Another caller said the ARL had often used Australia's military tradition to promote the game, but at the first shot fired in the war against terrorism its top players ducked for cover.

In England, league writers questioned the judgment that led to the decision and bemoaned the cost to the game.

"As well as doing incalculable damage to rugby league's already tattered international credibility and delivering a devastating financial blow, the decision is bewildering," wrote the Times' league columnist, Christopher Irvine.

"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 Britain, 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."

Dave Hadfield, of the Independent, wrote that a joke doing the rounds in British league circles was: "Does kangaroo steak taste like chicken?"

The Guardian asked: "What are the Australians frightened of? Qantas is unlikely to try to fly them over Afghanistan, and even if it did, the locals couldn't do too much about it right now.

"Terrorists are unlikely to board the plane: all the Afghans trying to get into Oz are still circling round the bloody Pacific in a leaky boat or cooped up on some little island.

- AGENCIES