Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
NZ NZ

'I'd love to make star signings, at times you get frustrated'

By Liam Heagney
(Photo by Richard Sellers/PA Images via Getty Images)

New Newcastle boss Dave Walder has shared his thoughts on the financial state of rugby in England following a week in which the futures of both Wasps and Worcester were thrown into chaos due to unpaid tax bills. Wasps have moved to appoint an administrator while Worcester fear they will be suspended by the RFU from 5pm next Monday due to the ongoing failure of their proposed takeover.

ADVERTISEMENT

Walder, the experienced Falcons head coach who succeeded Dean Richards as director of rugby in the off-season, has seen both troubled clubs up close this week as Newcastle visited Wasps’ Coventry Building Society Arena on Tuesday for a Premiership Rugby Cup game and they are also at Sixways this Saturday for a match that Worcester feel will be their last in the 2022/23 Gallagher Premiership.

It’s a bleak situation that leaves Walder fully aware of the financial limitations at play in the sport in England but thankful that Newcastle are diligent when it comes to balancing their books under Semore Kurdi. “We have always cut out cloth accordingly at Newcastle,” he reported at his media briefing before jumping on the bus south to Worcester for a match that was only given RFU permission to go ahead on Thursday after safety assurances were received.

Video Spacer

Video Spacer

“I’d love to go and make star signings and do X, Y, Z and have the ability to do that. At times you get frustrated up here with the way things are run but we have got the right idea and the right ethos around the club about doing things the right way.

“Semore, our owner, is on a lot of the boards and part of the decision making and things do filter down to me via our rugby board. All I can comment on from a financial point of view is that Newcastle are very lucky in having an owner like Semore, who has made his intentions pretty clear and has stuck to his guns. It’s sad what is going on at other clubs and the rumours.

Related

“We were down at Wasps on Tuesday and they have got this brilliant stadium and there were probably 200, 300 people watching. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that if you haven’t got people coming through the door you are going to find yourself in a tough situation. It’s been like that for years and years and years but the pandemic has accelerated or highlighted areas where people weren’t quite ready for things.

“Three away games in a week give you plenty of time to think about things on the bus,” he continued, giving a glimpse of how the Newcastle preparations were affected in the lead-up to this weekend. “Our team manager was trying to liaise with their team manager (at Worcester) about hotel costs before we shelled out whatever it is on the hotel as he wanted to know the game was going ahead.

ADVERTISEMENT

“We’d be lying if we said people aren’t thinking about it and aren’t talking about it but there is nothing we can do about it as a club. We have got to make sure we turn up on Saturday at Worcester and give a good account of ourselves.

“What happens at Monday five o’clock, there is nothing we can do about it. We have just got to make sure we play well on Saturday, focus on ourselves as best we can and then let everyone above us decide what the future of the game is.”

Can Walder give an example regarding the financial restrictions that Newcastle operate under to ensure they do things on a budget and how that approach might hurt them when competing against other Premiership clubs? “From recruitment, there are players we have gone in for and offered certain sums of money to and then other teams have come and blown us out of the water.

“It was Dean’s decision (in the past), you put a price on someone’s head and you pay to a certain point and then some of the numbers thrown around are mind-blowing. I always laugh as I am cynical, as my colleagues will tell you.

ADVERTISEMENT

“When rugby first went professional, football money was talked about when Rob Andrew took over up here with John Hall and then everyone realised where it was going. Then a couple of years later I came on the scene and wages were what they were [reduced] and then after I retired it seems to be going back up, so I guess I missed the boat. It’s now more the day-to-day squad sizes, how much you rely on your academy and we rely heavily on it.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Join free

Aotearoa Rugby Podcast | Episode 6

Sam Warburton | The Big Jim Show | Full Episode

Japan Rugby League One | Sungoliath v Eagles | Full Match Replay

Japan Rugby League One | Spears v Wild Knights | Full Match Replay

Boks Office | Episode 10 | Six Nations Final Round Review

Aotearoa Rugby Podcast | How can New Zealand rugby beat this Ireland team

Beyond 80 | Episode 5

Rugby Europe Men's Championship Final | Georgia v Portugal | Full Match Replay

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

J
Jon 7 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

35 Go to comments
j
john 10 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

But here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.

39 Go to comments
A
Adrian 12 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

Thanks Nick The loss of players to OS, injury and retirement is certainly not helping the Crusaders. Ditto the coach. IMO Penny is there to hold the fort and cop the flak until new players and a new coach come through,…and that's understood and accepted by Penny and the Crusaders hierarchy. I think though that what is happening with the Crusaders is an indicator of what is happening with the other NZ SRP teams…..and the other SRP teams for that matter. Not enough money. The money has come via the SR competition and it’s not there anymore. It's in France, Japan and England. Unless or until something is done to make SR more SELLABLE to the NZ/Australia Rugby market AND the world rugby market the $s to keep both the very best players and the next rung down won't be there. They will play away from NZ more and more. I think though that NZ will continue to produce the players and the coaches of sufficient strength for NZ to have the capacity to stay at the top. Whether they do stay at the top as an international team will depend upon whether the money flowing to SRP is somehow restored, or NZ teams play in the Japan comp, or NZ opts to pick from anywhere. As a follower of many sports I’d have to say that the organisation and promotion of Super Rugby has been for the last 20 years closest to the worst I’ve ever seen. This hasn't necessarily been caused by NZ, but it’s happened. Perhaps it can be fixed, perhaps not. The Crusaders are I think a symptom of this, not the cause

39 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING 'I didn't think it would happen this early': Carbery on Munster exit 'I didn't think it would happen this early': Carbery on Munster exit
Search