Sports Insider: Warriors guilty of throwing rocks at glass houses in NRL expansion row

Dame Lydia Ko, Dana White, Clayton McMillan and Roger Tuivasa-Sheck. Photos / Photosport, Getty images

An attack on a rival and a bid to stop a second New Zealand franchise reveal a Warriors outfit getting ahead of themselves and showing great hubris in the process; New Zealand Rugby executives are in the firing line as a secret email circulates among provincial unions; And Dame Lydia Ko tops an unforgettable year. All in today’s Sports Insider.

While rugby union burns in this country, its rival code continues to fiddle, squabble among itself and is increasingly in danger of squandering a once-in-a-generation opportunity.

Press coverage here about the Australian National Rugby League’s (NRL) mooted expansion programme is as thin on the ground as Warriors premierships while we still remain fixated with the slow train wreck that is New Zealand Rugby (NZR).

But across the pond, there are almost daily excitable reports on which franchises will secure the remaining three licences in the NRL’s planned 20-team club competition, many featuring New Zealand contenders.

Beyond Papua New Guinea’s bizarre taxpayer-funded (American and Australian) bid and a team based in Perth, there were four Kiwi syndicates alone bidding for the remaining licence, likely to be granted by 2030.

That’s now down to three after the first syndicate, headed by former Canterbury league officials and involving former Kiwis coach Frank Endacott, fell over.

We even have the fanciful notion of a Pasifika-themed franchise in Auckland – something that will never happen, not because it’s not a good idea but because the bid lacks substance and credibility.

The South Island Kea (headed by former NZR and NRL chief executive David Moffett) and the Southern Orca (a rebooted Wellington bid shifted south) are frequently in the headlines in Australian media, pushing their respective wares.

Perhaps it is this presence that has persuaded the Warriors to weigh in across the Ditch and declare themselves as the only franchise that should exist in this country.

Not for the first time, Warriors CEO Cameron George told Sydney’s Daily Telegraph that no other side should be admitted from New Zealand for at least “10 to 15 years” – a scenario that would effectively (and conveniently) kill off a second team.

In particular, George took the long handle to Moffett – and in doing so, revealed he knows little of the recent history of the game in this country.

“It’s funny because David Moffett has been quite vocal about how he’s coming to get the Warriors,” George told the Telegraph.

“This is the problem. I think he was the CEO of the NRL (in 2001), why didn’t he put money into New Zealand rugby league then? Then, all of a sudden, we’re saying we’re ready to go now.”

Park for a moment that Auckland FC and football have shown what healthy rivalries can produce. It is not only a self-serving comment, it’s an ignorant one.

Moffett actually saved the Warriors in 2001 from being kicked out of the NRL following a covert campaign by a cabal of ruthless Sydney club owners who wanted the Kiwi franchise gone.

I should know what happened because I had a seat at the table when it all went down.

At the height of Tainui’s ownership of the Warriors imploding following boardroom squabbles and eye-watering debt, Moffett and his successor David Gallop flew to New Zealand to ensure the Warriors stayed alive.

It was a painful exercise, given the new owner Eric Watson made it clear he would pay only $1 for the licence, wanted to sack everybody and also didn’t intend to honour the existing player contracts.

It would have been easy for the NRL to walk away from New Zealand at that point.

As the Warriors CEO at the time, I was hardly enamoured with Moffett seemingly working so hard to accommodate Watson.

But the veteran administrator ultimately made the right decisions. He not only helped the Warriors to survive but actually thrive, suggesting the club rename itself the “New Zealand Warriors” and adopt a black playing strip – which Watson promptly did.

That hardly seems the actions of a man that George has portrayed as being missing in action around the code in New Zealand at that time.

In fact, I recall one powerful Sydney club boss telling me at the time: “You blokes are bloody lucky ‘Moff’ had your back or you were gone.”

Here’s another history lesson for the current Warriors administrators.

Your regime is also not the first to have either placed emerging Warriors players with lower-grade Australian clubs or to field teams in junior grades – something George has touted as a reason why the Warriors should retain a monopoly.

The former was happening as long as 25 years ago when surplus players to the 18-man NRL first-grade squad were placed weekly with either the Newtown Jets in Sydney’s NSW Cup competition or Brisbane South in Queensland’s equivalent.

That was a commitment made in perilous financial times and without any NRL cash assistance – not like now where a substantial multimillion-dollar grant from head office propels the bulk of club development at the existing 17 franchises.

Roger Tuivasa-Sheck in action for the Warriors in a pre-season match against Melbourne. Photo / Photosport

Club owner Mark Robinson is no doubt tipping money in to help finance junior Warriors teams playing in Australian competitions, but the commercial strength of the NRL makes that far more palatable than previous eras.

Fielding five junior teams in Sydney is not some sort of visionary breakthrough – if anything, it’s a sign of hubris from a club acting as if it holds the sovereign role of developing the game in this country.

Little wonder then that Moffett fired back.

“The Warriors – a team with 30 years of underachievement both on and off the field – are suddenly the self-appointed gatekeepers of rugby league in New Zealand,” Moffett reminded Telegraph readers.

“Yet now they suddenly have the vision to ‘take over’ the country?

“Spare us. Their notion of monopolising New Zealand rugby league is as bizarre as it is delusional. They don’t run rugby league in New Zealand; they merely occupy a seat they’ve done little to earn.”

Touché.

If George wants an example of how competition is good for a club and code, he merely needs to stick his head outside his Penrose office on Saturday and view the second sold-out crowd at Mt Smart for Auckland FC’s local derby with the Wellington Phoenix.

That’s real vision.

NRL upsets West Australian Premier with its demands

The spat in the Daily Telegraph is symptomatic of the strange way the NRL continues to go about its expansion business.

In more than four decades of either covering or working in professional sport, I’ve never seen anything like it.

The Papua New Guinea venture continues to divide rival NRL club bosses, who struggle to find a good word to say about it, other than getting a slice of the A$60 million ($66.75m) licence fee the new club must pay.

Perth has bounced backwards and forwards as the other key Australian-based contender, but it seems the West Australian Premier Roger Cook – whose Government is being asked to fund the new franchise – is just as flummoxed over the NRL approach.

The league-loving Premier was angry and taken aback last week upon learning of “new” terms for acceptance.

They include the franchise fee seemingly doubling to A$120m and a demand his Government pour A$200m into the team’s planned Perth home stadium.

Cook appears to have grown weary of the NRL’s demands, telling its voluble chairman Peter V’Landys that he should “shut up”.

“Look, if he could just shut up for a little while,” Cook said on radio. “You ring him up and say how are you and the next day in the Daily Telegraph you get: ‘The Premier asks about my health.’”

To be fair, the NRL has made it very clear that Perth’s admission to the competition is dependent on the West Australian Government shelling out cash to support the plan.

But Cook says he is sick of the goalposts shifting, pointing out that Perth’s HBF Stadium already has superior facilities to many existing NRL club grounds and that the licence fee keeps ballooning.

“They [the NRL] are a funny mob to deal with,” Cook said last week before adding: “The NRL need us more than we need them.”

“WA is the only state that can put the N in NRL. It’s not a national comp until you get a WA side.”

The NRL’s apparent determination to wrangle public money from any new franchise is the key obstacle to another New Zealand team. It simply won’t happen no matter what Government we have in place and cash-strapped councils are not going to pay either.

An email doing the rounds should cause shudders at NZR

It’s been a tough past week for New Zealand Rugby.

First, there have been the revelations of a potential $60m blowout in the national union’s budget. Then we saw the CFO of the organisation quit.

But there could be worse to come.

Sports Insider is aware of an email doing the rounds among provincial unions, penned by one of them, but with the support of others.

The letter calls into question the performance of NZR’s senior executive team in recent times.

It is an issue the newly-formed NZR board, headed by its elected chair David Kirk, will need to tackle with questions over the flow and quality of information presented by executives to the previous board.

Dana White to blow Vikings horn before Vegas opener against Warriors

The Canberra Raiders tried to secure Tom Brady and NRL heavyweights even mused about persuading Donald Trump to do it.

But now it seems UFC kingpin (and a Trump favourite) Dana White will be the celebrity who blows the Viking horn ahead of the start of Canberra’s NRL season-opening clash with the Warriors in Las Vegas next weekend.

UFC boss Dana White is set to blow the Canberra Raiders horn. Photo/ Photosport

Brady, the superstar who is a part-owner of the Raiders NFL franchise that calls Las Vegas’s Allegiant Stadium home, was originally mooted as the man to start the slow Viking “war clap” that has become a feature of Canberra’s home matches.

But he opted out and now it seems White, the confrontational boss of the global mixed martial arts juggernaut, will answer the call.

Cheika the tip to replace Schmidt

Talking of confrontational personalities, Michael Cheika is firming as Joe Schmidt’s replacement as Wallabies coach.

Cheika secretly met with Rugby Australia CEO Phil Waugh last week and insiders say he is the frontrunner to replace Schmidt, who will step down after the British and Irish Lions tour and the Rugby Championship.

Cheika is not everyone’s cup of tea, but he always created big headlines in his previous stint as Wallabies coach, showing a real knack at being able to get up the nose of Kiwis.

A return would be welcome.

Team of the Week

Clayton McMillan: The Chiefs coach gets his team off to a Super Rugby Pacific flyer with an impressive win over the Blues at Eden Park and in the process adds a further boost to his growing reputation.

Dame Lydia Ko: Takes the Supreme Halberg Award this week to cap off a stunning 12 months of success. Nobody would have quibbled with a tie between Ko and the other dame, Lisa Carrington, but it was a just decision.

Max Verstappen: In a rare show of Formula One unity, the world champion welcomes Kiwi Liam Lawson into Red Bull’s top team as his teammate. “He fully deserves his shot,” said Verstappen. Every Kiwi agrees.

Leon MacDonald: Scott Robertson’s former assistant and Crusaders teammate secures his first coaching role since leaving Razor’s All Blacks troupe, signing up as director of rugby at Perth’s Western Force.