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Rob Clarke's fight with 'hardball' NZ Rugby earns rave review inside Rebels dressing room

By AAP
(Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

Wallabies hooker Jordan Uelese has backed Rugby Australia’s ultimatum for New Zealand to either accept five Aussie teams in a remodelled Super Rugby competition or carry on without their trans-Tasman friends in 2021. Uelese, the Rebels No2, says RA boss Rob Clarke’s deadline of September 4 for NZ Rugby to make up its mind gives players much-needed certainty in an increasingly uncertain world.

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The Kiwis are playing hardball, last month asking RA to submit an expression of interest for two Australian sides to join New Zealand’s five Super Rugby Aotearoa outfits and a Pacific Island side in a preferred eight-team competition.

But Clarke isn’t copping that and Uelese has applauded the interim chief executive’s courage to fight for the inclusion of all five Super Rugby AU franchises – the Queensland Reds, NSW Waratahs, ACT Brumbies, Melbourne Rebels and Western Force.

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“There’s an immense amount of talent in Australia here, especially in WA and Victoria and we have gone and shown that,” said the Rebels rake and Wallabies’ World Cup hooker.

“There have been doubts about how the Rebels were going to play at the start of this season and we have shown the amount of depth we have and the pathways we have with Victorian players coming through the system. So if you take away a team from there, that means the amount of talent that goes around the whole of Australia is really missed.”

The Rebels have blooded 16 rookies in 2020 yet can still go top of the table, leapfrogging the Brumbies, with a bonus-point win over the Reds in Brisbane on Saturday night. “It’s huge to have the Rebels up there,” Uelese said, adding that it was vital for a new competition format to be settled upon one way or another ASAP.

“Many of us players in Australia are not too sure about what the future is going to hold,” he said. “So having this kind of plan, having a (set) date, is huge and it’s big ups to the RA and the board putting plans ahead so then we can lock in our future.

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“Our life span as footy players is not very long so having that future here in Australian rugby is huge for us players who want to stay here and hopefully for future Wallabies who want to stay in Australia.”

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Jon 9 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”?

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