The real harsh reality? Wallabies are missing this trick by sticking to their guns on Giteau Law

I started out writing a reply to John Ferguson’s article on the Giteau Law but the further I went (and in fairness to the OP), decided that instead of posting a long response it was better to post this article for further discussion (and rebuttal).

The original article premise was that regardless of the success of South Africa and Argentina, overseas selection for Australia is more complicated, undervalues how elite programs work and besides, only two players would be worth it.

I strongly disagree as I believe that this position both ignores the facts, history of our players careers and completely misses the point.

In relation to the two Rugby Championship countries enjoying greater success internationally, you cannot ignore the fact that South Africa (through both OS selection and regular northern hemisphere club matches) has access to the best of both worlds. South Africa can pick and choose players exposed to multiple competitions and standards both at home and abroad.

Argentina also reaps the benefits of their players’ exposure to wider competition than Australia or New Zealand and I believe you can argue that whether by accident or design, it is having an effect.

Yet Australia does no such thing. We do not historically select more than the occasional few Australian players that are also active in those same competitions /opposing/completing at a high level with those South African players day in day out…

Why is that? Why are we protecting a local competition that is so insular? Doesn’t anyone see the downward trend of both Australian and New Zealand Rugby?

Or is it because we restrict those players until they are past what we regard as their ‘prime’ playing days and their increased abilities and skills are offset by being in the twilight of their career?

Yet what if they went earlier, upskilled and became a better player whilst still having the ability to lead? Could that (properly structured) not benefit Australian Rugby?

So what is the point that I believe is being missed?

The point is that by restricting players’ selection, we completely miss out on and ignore the asset of overseas players improving their skills while in their prime and at the OS club’s expense.

This is exactly what South Africa and Argentina are reaping.

We (Australian Rugby) who have no money could select players who are being paid for and up-skilled elsewhere yet still have them available to us. What would we lose? The oft-cited argument is that it would devalue our local competition and the standard of our players.

You know, that raging success called Super Rugby Pacific.

Australian players going overseas (particularly earlier) can and are, I believe be exposed to clearly better coaching, skill sets, strength conditioning and work rates that both prolong and improve their careers. There is clear evidence of players who do so whilst playing at a high level both early and later in their careers that are still of value to Australian rugby.

This could be a huge benefit to Australian rugby yet is being ignored by our insular position.

And I will use as an example, one of the players cited in the article.

Now I don’t profess to be an expert on players but I do recall that despite strength and conditioning programs, elite training, tutelage of a (future) Wallaby Coach and the cutting-edge high-performance analyst support at the time, one Will Skelton joined Saracens early in his career and promptly dropped over 20 kilos.

What an indictment on the quality of Australian rugby programs that is. High Performance? Really?

Then he was part of a couple of premiership titles and a couple of Champions Cup trophies through to 2023.

Now, where that article misses the point is that what if there had been an active policy by RA to relax or as I have suggested elsewhere, actually encourage overseas playing… call it a scholarship if you like.

If that policy had been in place (with the requirements for national duty as suggested), RA and the Wallabies would have had access to a top-line player such as Will Skelton for the last six years instead of just 2023.

I do not agree that players’ stocks are ‘magically raised’ simply by just going overseas. They have to do the work to survive and thrive…. they have to earn their position just like anyone else.

In just the case of Will Skelton, he has obviously benefited from better training, more accountability, more work and learnt more skills. He is bigger, stronger, faster (sorry to those old enough to remember)…

Yet we (in Will’s case until recently) just ignore it.

The indictment on RA and the Wallabies setup is that for all these years we did not have a structure and pathway that required him to be available for Australia to benefit on the skills he learnt elsewhere until recently.

Then there is Richie Arnold, a regular in Champions Cup for 3 years, Rory Arnold same for 5 years, Tala Gray, Luke Burgess, Zack Holmes, Brock James, Kane Douglas, Lopeti Timani and the list goes on and on… all playing Champions Cup.

Whether the armchair experts think any of these players should have been selected for the Wallabies neglects the fact that these players were good enough to play in multiple Champions Cup matches but as far as RA or the Wallabies coach of the day (and their own favourites etc) they were mostly invisible.

You could also argue the above were older players who were near the end of their careers, but that would ignore players such as Malachi Hawkes, a 22-year-old prop who went from Shute Shield to the Espoirs Squad (French National under 21s), Ted Condon from Queensland country currently doing the same…and I’m sure there are many others we have let get away yet at what potential cost?

That is why I completely disagree with the premise of that article, as it cherry-picks the here and now and completely ignores both what we have missed out on over many, many years and how by at least considering what South Africa and Argentina are implementing, we could in the future benefit.

There is absolutely nothing stopping RA from implementing a contracting model that both allows our players to go overseas earlier in their careers under certain conditions whilst remaining available for Wallaby selection and then encourages them (if they wish) to come back whilst they offer value to our local teams or just to our national teams.

South Africa have clearly shown the way… and they have an abundance of players in their prime to choose from.

Again, I offer Skelton by way of example and the years we have missed.

As to the older players, imagine what would have been if we’d had access to some of them benefiting from the sort of improvement  Skelton had whilst they were still in their prime.

How good could Matt Giteau have been if he’d spent a couple of years in the Northern Hemisphere whilst still in his prime?

Finally, I repeat, why did it take nearly 5 years for Australia to wake up to Will’s value and skill set improvement once he went offshore before the Wallabies looked at him yet he is still a good enough product from that environment to be our captain?

He obviously benefited from having to lose weight, up-skilling and doing the work…

Taniela Tupou anyone?