Peter V'landys, Grace Nweke and Bay of Plenty's 2004 Ranfurly Shield triumph. Photo / Getty Images, Photosport
Australia’s rugby league powerbrokers are insulting New Zealand with token efforts on expansion; NRL pair snub Christchurch league identities at transtasman test; And three Kiwi sports docos remind of us of the lost “good old days”. All in today’s Sports Insider.
OPINION
A shambolic week including a visit to Christchurch has revealed that Australia’s National Rugby League (NRL) is not serious about admitting a second Kiwi franchise to Australia’s club competition.
Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V’landys and his CEO Andrew Abdo have played a curious game around their intentions to create a 20-team competition by 2030.
But in the past week it has descended into farce as it has become plainly clear the expansion process till now has been little more than a fishing expedition.
Last Friday, V’landys and Abdo dropped a bombshell by revealing they had rejected 11 bids for expansion franchise licences, including three from Christchurch, one from Perth, one from Papua New Guinea and six from southeast Queensland.
The primary reason given to the failed bidders was that they would need to cough up a licence of almost $60 million each for the privilege of entering the competition. V’landys warned contenders they needed to “up their game” or risk ongoing snubbing.
Much of any licence fee revenue will go to the existing 17 NRL clubs, including the Warriors, who are demanding A$2m ($2.2m) to A$3m each in return for agreeing to further expansion.
But here’s the rub – V’landys and Abdo seemingly don’t want private owners of any of the new clubs.
So if Christchurch wants to secure a NRL licence, the clear preference is for that funding to come primarily from the public purse rather than private equity players, investment funds or wealthy individuals (think Mark Robinson and the Warriors).
In New Zealand, that means money being stumped up by central and local government.
And that’s why, dear readers, a second New Zealand franchise, no matter where it’s based, is cold, stone dead in the water.
The winners? An inconsistently performing Warriors franchise and a floundering New Zealand Rugby.
The losers? Overwhelmingly, the NRL – who have rugby on its knees in this country but can’t see it because they’re blinded by the bright lights of Las Vegas and the seduction of American gambling dollars.
But also Kiwi sports fans robbed of the tasty prospect of a Wellington Phoenix-Auckland FC rivalry within league and another home for New Zealand-born players.
Who would have thought it ... the A-League outperforming the NRL on getting it right in New Zealand?
The rejection bombshell dropped by the NRL was followed by some strange behaviour from V’landys and Abdo when they visited the Garden City the following weekend for the sold-out Australia-New Zealand double-header on Sunday.
Back to that in a moment.
The day before landing, V’landys and Abdo were at pains to tell Australian media that expansion of what they claim is the most-watched TV sport in the country was still alive and on track.
The NRL would continue to work with the Australian Government on conditions for A$600m of promised funding for a team from Papua New Guinea to take the competition to 18 clubs in 2027 (nobody in the game thinks the PNG plan is a good idea).
Perth would be next the following season but only, V’landys intoned, if the Western Australia State Premier and league lover Roger Cook played ball on funding (the NRL had the previous week fired a shot across the state’s bows by rejecting the Perth Bears bid).
V’landys even suggested the NRL might initially co-own the Perth licence and sell it on in the future. Beyond the ongoing Olympic class backflips, does anybody notice a pattern here?
Central or local government pays and the NRL has outsized control of new franchises, possibly right down to appointing boards, CEOs and coaches.
It works across the Tasman due to the size of their market and funding of its states. The Australians seem to believe New Zealand will fall into line with this strategy in our desperation to secure the 20th and final licence.
But that’s not going to wash here. Imagine telling the Christchurch council and central government that their $700m odd investment in the new roofed Te Kaha Stadium now needs to be topped up by contributions to NRL licence fees.
It’ll never happen. It’s a shame because at least one of the South Island bids has serious investment backing from a fund already extremely active in global sport. But they are currently locked out (presumably because they might want a say in how things are run).
It’s a greater shame that V’landys is likely to simply shrug his shoulders and move on by awarding the 20th licence to one of a clutch of desperate bids from the southeastern corridor of Queensland, such as the Ipswich and Brisbane Easts clubs.
Like the latest (and successful) licence winners, the Redcliffe Dolphins from Brisbane, both Ipswich and Easts are asset-rich in property and leagues clubs and are likely to agree to the NRL’s extortionate terms.
But he and Abdo might also find the Kiwi sports audience collectively shrugs its shoulders and moves on as well – particularly if the Warriors miss the playoffs more often than they make it.
After all, it’s not like we’re starved of sporting success right now.
However, the attitude remains an insult to the New Zealand league fraternity at a time when 45% of existing NRL men’s and women’s squads identify as being either of New Zealand or Pasifika origin.
The seemingly disengaged and diffident demeanour shown by V’landys and Abdo on a fleeting visit to Christchurch last weekend reflected that attitude.
Perhaps we can start with the failure to even reply to an invitation to meet from Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger, who has enthusiastically endorsed expansion bids from the Garden City.
And maybe we can add turning up halfway through the women’s test between the Jillaroos and the Kiwi Ferns and then failing to engage in any meaningful way with guests at the game, including former Kiwis coach Frank Endacott and ex-NRL CEO David Moffett.
Endacott and Moffett are involved in separate bids from Christchurch and, given their service to the game and expansion work to date, could have reasonably been expected to gain some sort of audience with the pair.
It didn’t happen over the two days V’landys and Abdo were in town, although Moffett remains undeterred.
Nor did they bother to inspect Te Kaha, which would be the home of any South Island team.
The duo apparently walked around the outside of it on Monday but that was it. Offers of a tour inside, or to inspect Christchurch’s other high performance facilities were not taken up.
On a more positive note for rugby league, a film celebrating New Zealand’s finest player, Mark Graham, has its world premiere in Auckland this Sunday night.
The night will feature the great man himself, no doubt slightly uncomfortable on the red carpet at New Lynn’s Reading Cinema, and will be accompanied by his film-making son Luke Graham, who made Sharko.
The event will also be attended by Stacey Jones, Kieran Foran, Shaun Johnson and the Kiwis who play Tonga at Mt Smart Stadium the evening before. Other guests include many of Graham’s former Kiwis teammates including Hugh McGahan and Dean Lonergan, as well as master coach Sir Graham Lowe.
Sports Insider may be biased, given I was one of the people interviewed for the well-crafted documentary-style feature.
But having seen a preview, it would be wrong to categorise the film as just a sports doco. It touches deeply into important family and generational themes and is superbly done.
Sharko will then go on tour in cinemas around Australia and New Zealand.
Great work also continues to be done at grassroots rugby level around documentary content.
Sports Insider stumbled on two examples while recently exploring Sky TV’s offering and discovered a couple of hidden gems, both produced by the same Kiwi company.
The first is a documentary titled SACRED: A Rugby Story for the Ages, which follows the Sacred Heart College First XV and their first win in the Auckland 1A Championship in 55 years last season.
The story is told through the eyes of the teenage players and highlights the reaction of old boys and the local community. It is showing on Sky Sport as well as World Rugby’s Rugby Pass.
The second doco is also grassroots-flavoured and produced by the same company, Sports Inc, headed by talented Aucklander Kelsen Butler.
Called Up for the Challenge: The Reunion, it focuses on the Bay of Plenty’s Ranfurly Shield victory over Auckland in 2004.
Successful Blues coach Vern Cotter and another bloke you may have heard of named Joe Schmidt were involved in the upset over Auckland, which remains the only time the Steamers have held New Zealand provincial rugby’s most iconic trophy.
Cotter and Schmidt are among those interviewed, while the doco also features footage from an original Up for the Challenge programme from 20 years ago, when the production company took a punt and followed the team in the build-up to the historic win.
Like Sacred, it has also been playing on Sky Sport for the past couple of weeks.
Both are well worth a watch and infinitely superior to the rubbish being delivered up by New Zealand Rugby’s turgid NZR+ digital platform.
The latest “treat” from the latter is a nine-minute “giant tag battle” filmed at Eden Park for God knows how much money and featuring Caleb Clarke and sevens star Michaela Blyde taking on some “Japanese YouTube sensation” named Fischer.
It’s a “content series like no other!” gushed NZR’s promo release.
Spare me.
Phoenix and Auckland FC
Both unbeaten after two rounds of the A-League and a spicy Saturday lies ahead in the capital, in the first instalment of a shiny new professional rivalry.
New Zealand’s NBL and Tauihi Basketball Aotearoa
A collaboration between Sky TV and the men’s and women’s national basketball leagues bears further fruit with Indian investment into new sides based in South Auckland. No other league in New Zealand is matching the innovation being shown.
Wallace Sititi
Looking more at home as the All Blacks starting No 8 as anybody since Kieran Read – and now with the chance to prove it at Twickenham on Sunday morning.
Grace Nweke and the Silver Ferns
Now rivalling their cricket counterparts as the least-expected performers of a stellar October month of sporting success. Who didn’t enjoy a Nweke-inspired walloping of the Australian Diamonds in Perth?
In the case of the All Blacks, what goes on tour becomes headlines.