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Opinion
The more things change in rugby league, the more they stay the same.
As if reviving the Bears from their slumber was not enough of a retro charge, the latest blast from the past is that South African rugby union talent is supposedly going to be the solution to the heavy dilution of the player pool which will occur in the next few years of rapid expansion.
When the Perth Bears and Papua New Guinea franchises bring the NRL to a 19-team competition, there will be gold to mine from the South African rugby playing stocks.
This idea was floated in the 1990s during the Super League War era as an option for Australian clubs to plunder names such as the late great Joost van der Westhuizen, Percy Montgomery and Andre Joubert.
These Springboks aces, in the tail end of rugby’s shamateur era, were supposedly going to be easy targets for the cashed-up rugby league chief executives.
All they had to do was wave a fistful of Aussie dollars in their direction and they would have the best young Springboks just itching for the opportunity to become an Adelaide Ram, South Queensland Crusher or Western Red.
Sounded great in theory but in reality, the only former South African rugby star who made the grade on the Australian league scene was former captain Tiaan Strauss, who was a serviceable forward for Cronulla in a grand total of 14 matches over the course of two seasons before he returned to his rugby roots with the Waratahs and eventually, Wallabies.
Penrith snared centre Pieter Muller who spent the 1996 season in reserve grade before returning to rugby. And thus ended the experiment of trying to prise talent out of Africa.
ARL chair Peter V’landys has over the weekend been spruiking the option of plundering the South African rugby stocks to help alleviate the impending dearth of NRL-level players to fill the rosters of Perth and PNG.
In a slightly new twist from the spin that was spun 30-odd years ago, Argentina’s rugby players also have been floated as an option.
It’s hard enough for Australian and New Zealand rugby players to hop across the codes even when they’ve grown up in an environment where both codes are pretty much everywhere on their TV screens.
For rugby players in South Africa and South America, it would be very risky for NRL CEOs to allocate their precious salary cap space on players who would have had little to no experience even watching this form of the sport, let alone playing it.
Joost van der Westhuizen. (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)
With these two teams following in the footsteps of the Dolphins, the NRL is adding 90 new roster spots in the course of a six-year stretch after a stable couple of decades following league’s civil war and the rationalisation of clubs that came from that.
The Gold Coast Titans’ arrival in 2007 has been the only new addition since South Sydney were re-admitted five years earlier.
It’s pointless to argue that the talent pool won’t be diluted. It clearly will and it’s always the case for any sporting league that adds new teams.
When expansion occurs, the problem for the NRL will be evenly distributing the talent but apart from the salary cap, there are no mechanisms in place for the Perth and PNG franchises to get a helping hand in their embryonic years.
Rusted-on leaguies in South-East Queensland are concerned about the rise of AFL premiers, Brisbane Lions, and the third-placed Gold Coast Suns, who have benefited from years and years of extra funding to ensure they can compete with the powerhouses from the Victorian, South Australian and Western Australia heartlands.
One of the main reasons, if not the main one, for the new franchises popping up in Perth and Port Moresby, is that they will boost the NRL’s position at the bargaining table when they negotiate the next round of broadcast rights by adding an extra match each round.
More content equals greater value equals more dollars.
But the last thing the NRL needs or the TV executives want to see is another two teams that aren’t competitive and don’t attract interest in the national market.
There’s no doubt the PNG franchise will be devoutly followed by its league-loving nation and there should be enough of an expat population from “over east” to ensure the Bears have sufficient interest locally to get them going.
Lachlan Galvin. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)
But if both franchises are going to be easybeats in the short and long term, does the NRL really need another version of the Titans perennially dragging the standards down.
It’s popular when a new team gets the green light for fans and media alike to speculate on the potential roster they could have in place by their inaugural game even though many of the NRL’s out-and-out superstars are under lock and key until the end of the decade and, in some cases, longer.
There is plenty of talent off contract at the end of next year that could, in theory, give the Bears a team packing plenty of bite.
Ryan Papenhuyzen, Payne Haas, Tino Fa’asuamaleaui, Viliame Kikau, Herbie Farnworth, Jarome Luai, Angus Crichton and Keaon Koloamatangi are just a few of the stars who will be free agents.
1 Ryan Papenhuyzen
2 Mark Nawaqanitawase
3 Nick Meaney
4 Tom Trbojevic
5 Tyrell Sloan
6 Lachie Galvin
7 Jahrome Hughes
8 Payne Haas
9 Blayke Brailey
10 Griffin Neame
11 Angus Crichton
12 Keaon Koloamatangi
13 Tino Fa’asuamaleaui
14 Connor Tracey
15 Jayden Campbell
16 Josh Curran
17 Shawn Blore
*they’ll be lucky to sign two or three of these players
In reality their foundation roster will be the Temu version of that best-case scenario.
It will likely be filled with journeymen, cast-offs and players who have only taken up the offer because the Bears have paid well above market value for their services.
Canterbury supremo Phil Gould recently lauded the Dolphins for identifying Isaiya Katoa as the young halfback prospect that they could build their team around in their early years, gambling on the precocious teenager from Penrith.
The Warriors did likewise in signing Luke Metcalf a year out from the end of his deal at the Sharks as part of their succession planning for Shaun Johnson’s retirement and the Dragons have followed a similar script by luring Dan Atkinson from Cronulla to solve their playmaking woes next season.
Canberra poached NSW Under-19 halfback Ethan Sanders from Parramatta before he was NRL ready to take over from Jamal Fogarty long term.
Lachie Galvin is not yet signed, sealed and delivered to Parra because he cannot negotiate with rival clubs for 2027 until November 1.
Perth should have their coach and front office well and truly in place by then so if they can enter the race for the signature of the Tigers rising star, he should be priority No.1.
Judging by the way his manager has handled his playing future thus far, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the Bears are used as leverage to squeeze more money out of the Eels.
For the long-suffering Bears fans and the league diehards in the West who have been waiting even longer for a team of their own to cheer following the demise of the Western Reds in 1997, they will likely be happy just to be back in the big league even if their team won’t be of playoff calibre.
At least the Perth executives will have an easier time trying to get players to cross to the other side of the country than their PNG counterparts a year later who will need every tax-free dollar they can scrounge together to convince recruits to relocate to one of the world’s most dangerous cities.