Australian Rugby Union coach Ewen McKenzie has conceded the ARU "needs to be more flexible in its contracting arrangements for top players but says the sport needs them playing in Australia," according to Georgina Robinson of the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD.
Less than a week after dual int'l Israel Folau said that "short-term sabbaticals could be an incentive to keep top players in Australia," McKenzie said the ARU "needed to remain competitive with lucrative markets in Europe and Japan but also had to protect its most valuable marketing tools." McKenzie: "We're in a very hot market for the hearts and minds of young kids and you need to have players available to back that up." He added, "We battle as it is now because we haven't got enough heroes. We're trying to develop more heroes through the five Super clubs and through sevens, so we have to keep working on that." McKenzie said that "there was flexibility already built into the ARU's contracting processes and a subcommittee recently formed to review the system would look at ways to keep Australia competitive with increasingly lucrative overseas markets" (SMH, 6/22). In Sydney, Jamie Pandaram reported McKenzie's comments "come on the back of blistering weekend newspaper columns criticising" ARU CEO Bill Pulver. McKenzie: "If players are going to say ‘I’m happy to stay here for four or five years,' in amongst that there might be opportunities to talk about that. But you have to explore the definition of what a sabbatical is." McKenzie’s "intimation that players who recommit to Australian rugby for the long-term may get sabbatical allowances is sound."
It "has worked for the All Blacks so there is no reason it shouldn’t work for the Wallabies" (DAILY TELEGRAPH, 6/23).
