Rugby: Why Andrew Forrest's 'IPL of rugby' won't work

Andrew Forrest is flanked by Western Force players after losing their court appeal. Photo / Getty Images.

By Jim Tucker

AS creative as the idea of the Western Force playing in Singapore, Hong Kong and far flung ports may seem, the fly-high ideals of such a rebel competition will be hit by the reality that no Wallabies contender will dare dive in.

This is not a cynical hose being poured on the admirable passion of billionaire backer Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest to keep the Force afloat at all costs or the players to back him.

Alternative competitions always start like this. The grand plan is that they are parallel tournaments but inevitably they cut across "official" rugby, cricket or whatever and ruling bodies enforce limitations or bans.

You'll never get the Australian Rugby Union paying the contracts for Adam Coleman, Dane Haylett-Petty or Tatafu Polota-Nau to go rogue in "an IPL of rugby" and play against invitation teams like the Asia Pacific Dragons, a Hong Kong outfit or a Pacific Islanders XV.

Nor would any of that trio, when push comes to shove, risk the very clear road they have to the Wallabies from Super Rugby. When the dust settles, well before the hurt and emotion, they'll be playing for other Australian Super Rugby sides with a black armband under their jerseys as a nod to the dearly departed Force.

Those South Africans now playing for the Cheetahs and Southern Kings in Europe, after being axed from Super Rugby, can still be selected by the Springboks. No such avenue to Tests exists for Australians unless over the 60-Test threshold.

Before the Indian Premier League became a crazy economic engine for the Board of Control for Cricket in India with its T20 cricket revolution, it stomped all over the Indian Cricket League that was created by private promoters a decade ago.

World Series Cricket in the 1970s took on official cricket and its players were banned from Tests for two summers.

We still enjoy the fantastic benefits of WSC to this day because the late Kerry Packer had brilliant minds imagining, not what cricket had always been, but what it could be with coloured clothing, a white ball, fielding circles, day-night spectacles and a far better TV product.

Forrest has a bit of Packer about him. On Tuesday, he had a six-shooter in one hand taking more pot shots at the ARU by calling for chairman Cameron Clyne to resign for "heinously" culling the Force and stirred up the likelihood of a High Court challenge.

With the other, he was orchestrating fervour for a six-team revolution with "deeply powerful players" for "the beginning of the new Force and the beginning of the Indo Pacific competition."

There are cash-rich rugby figures in Singapore and Hong Kong, with grand stadiums, who will love this. They will pay for a few hired rugby guns out of Europe but the end result will be a second-tier spin-off of National Rugby Championship-level rugby.

That in itself will be great addition to the rugby map. It won't keep those big-name Wallabies in Perth but it could well nourish all those kids in Western Australia who have taken to rugby over the past 12 years and have been sorely let down by the ARU.