NRL 2022: Ex-ARL boss John Quayle hits out at clubs suggesting a breakaway from the major league
The former ARL boss who presided over one of the sport’s most-tumultuous periods says clubs suggesting a breakaway from the NRL need to learn from the lessons of the past.
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John Quayle, having seen all this before, shook his head and then recalled what former News Limited CEO Ken Cowley said to him as the Super League war began to fizzle to an end back in the late 1990s.
“Ken said to me, ‘You know John, to think of all the money we’ve all spent on this, do you think one day we’ll all look back and say, was it all worth it?’’ Quayle recalled on Friday.
“I had great respect for Ken, even though he sat on the other side of the (ARL) fence.
“He then said, ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again.’’
On Monday, The Daily Telegraph’s back page splash read: “WE’LL START REBEL COMP”
The mere mention of a divided competition sent a chill down the spine of every individual who endured the war that gripped rugby league back in 1995.
The article, penned by my experienced colleague Phil Rothfield, explained the increasing tension over the current CBA negotiations between the NRL and the RLPA, largely backed by the clubs.
The piece revealed that disgruntled clubs were toying with the idea of a breakaway competition.
A collective gasp could be heard across the game as Penrith CEO Bryan Fletcher confirmed in Buzz’s piece that breaking ranks was a last-resort play.
It was one of the most-read pieces of content for the day on the Telegraph website.
Talkback radio went into meltdown.
From his property in the Hunter, Quayle, the former ARL CEO, who revolutionised the game and the man behind signing Tina Turner to the code’s greatest ever advertising campaign, winced at the news.
“This talk about a rebel league, the clubs seriously don’t understand the ramifications of even suggesting it,’’ Quayle explained.
“It’s sad that the lessons of the past are never acknowledged in that situation and that all sports stay away from it.
“You go back to the fights in the NBA, English Premier League, and NFL with breakaway competitions proposed by owners and then they all realise as I always said, you’re worth nothing if you’re just playing in the local park competition.
“You’ve got to understand that you are part of a major competition.
“Clubs like Penrith should remind themselves how they got into the league in the first place, they were voted in by the other clubs.
“Admittedly that was back in 1967, but the administrators at the time had a vision of expanding the competition, as we then did with Brisbane (1988) and Auckland (1995).
“Originally five or six of the clubs were opposed to that because they knew it would weaken them and so their decision was driven by self-interest.
“And so here we are again.
“No one should believe the comments of clubs who say they are in it for the best interests of the game. It’s not, it’s in the best interests of them.
“I’d say to Penrith, ‘Why don’t you go back and play in the junior league and see what you’re worth?’
“These new administrators (club CEO’s) have no acknowledgment, have no respect for the past and no respect for how they got there.
“For someone to even mention it (a rebel league), do they seriously think anyone is going to run and join your competition?”
Raiders coach Ricky Stuart, the most-prized signature of all for Super League, needed to read the article twice.
In 1995, after beating the Cowboys, Stuart was one of the first Canberra players called into a boardroom at the Townsville casino to meet with Lachlan Murdoch and Cowley.
He signed with Super League that night and one by one, the majority of the Raiders committed to leave the ARL.
Out of respect to his two representative coaches at the time, Bob Fulton (Australia) and Phil Gould (NSW), who were also aligned with the ARL, Stuart told Murdoch and Cowley he wanted to meet with the two coaches 48 hours later.
Stuart broke the news to Fulton and Gould that he had chosen to sign with Super League, while also revealing the sign-on figure.
It’s well documented that players who chose to sign with Super League doubled their bank balance overnight. Yet the champion halfback signed with Super League for less than what the ARL had assigned for him.
The ARL, he was told, had close to $1 million a season for Stuart put to the side for his signature.
It didn’t matter, Stuart had made his decision to stay loyal to the Raiders.
Stuart reflected on his own decision when asked about the developments surrounding the club’s battle with the NRL this week.
“I read the story and thought, are these clubs serious? Where is the money going to come from to run another comp?” Stuart said.
“If we did that (rebel league proposal) again, it would break the game forever.
“How quickly people forget that the game was on its knees when Peter V’landys took over.
“I’ll never begrudge players doing the best they can. I’m all for the clubs earning as much money as they possibly can.
“But we have to remember where we were prior to the current administration at the NRL.
“We broke the game once and the game learned and prospered to its greatest point today.
“We don’t need to break it again.
Brutal Grant backlash slammed in glacial NRL pay war
—Brent Read
Players union boss Clint Newton has hit out at criticism of Harry Grant, questioning whether people want players to be “pot plants” after the Kangaroos hooker was carved up for speaking out in defence of players struggling to make a living from the game.
Grant spoke earlier this week about his frustrations with negotiations between the Rugby League Players Association and the NRL, which have dragged on for months and appear no closer to resolution.
At one point, he suggested that some players may be better off working “on the tools” rather than playing rugby league. Those comments were used as a brickbat by some to whack Grant over the head, leaving Newton infuriated at the way they were misconstrued as rugby league finds itself immersed in a civil war.
“I was disappointed,” Newton said.
“The one thing I’ve said consistently is that I’ve never been prouder of the playing group. This is a playing group that has consistently done everything it can to look after the players at the bottom end of the list.
“We saw that during Covid where Origin players took 50 per cent reductions to push that money through into the salary cap which allowed us to ensure that minimum wage players didn’t go backwards, particularly those guys around the $80,000 mark.
“What Harry was trying to do was protect the guys at the bottom. Of course, players at the top end of the list are on decent money and so they should be.
“That’s not what he was saying. Players are very happy to play rugby league and they love the game.
“They just want to make sure their share of revenue reflects their contribution and that the guys at the bottom of the list and past players are looked after.”
The NRL appears close to reaching an agreement with its 17 clubs which is designed to ensure their financial stability, leaving them with a $5 million buffer between their player payments and the club grant.
The concern for the union is that by striking a deal with the clubs first, it would limit their ability to negotiate terms for their players. Newton is as frustrated as anyone by the glacial pace of talks, which were originally planned to be concluded mid-season but have now dragged on beyond October 31, when the existing agreement expired.
“What do we want?” Newton said.
“Do we want players to be pot plants where it’s this ‘shut up and play’ type attitude. The fact is, by players advocating for improvements in their terms and conditions, that absolutely has an impact on the future of the game.
“We should be all pointing to our code as industry leading and the gold standard. So the mums and dads of the world, if I have a boy or a girl, at a point of their junior career where do they want to go.
“We want them to be going to rugby league because we can say [it has] the best remuneration, the best support, the best services, the best wellbeing and education programs and the best opportunity to not just be good players, but good people.
“And then when they transition to retirement they have the best protections in place.”
Asked whether he still believed ARL Commission chair Peter V’landys was the right man to take the game forward, Newton — in Manchester for personal reasons — insisted the RLPA wasn’t chasing scalps.
“No, there’s no William Wallace here — we’re not putting heads on spikes,” he said.
“One of the things that often gets spoken about behind closed doors is that players or us, we’re looking to remove people from the game.
“That couldn’t be further from the truth. What we want is passionate people leading our game.
“Peter’s clearly passionate about the game. What I’d like to believe is that the commission, which is clearly led by Peter as chair, understands our claims, they respect our claims and they respect the role of the players.
“If we were all moving in the same direction, we could be an absolutely formidable force in Australian sport.”
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