Izack Rodda, Isaac Lucas and Harry Hockings turn backs on mates for money grab
Izack Rodda, Isaac Lucas and Harry Hockings of the Queensland Reds will forever be tainted by refusing to accept the pay cut agreed to by the rest of the players to save rugby in Australia.
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Here they are; the only three professional footballers in the country who want to be paid in full while their teammates, coaches and administrative staff endure enormous financial strain to keep their respective codes alive, writes Jamie Pandaram.
Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of everyday Australians who’ve lost their jobs through the COVID-19 pandemic that has shattered the economy.
Izack Rodda, Isaac Lucas and Harry Hockings of the Queensland Reds will forever be tainted by this episode; stood down without pay on Monday after refusing to accept the average 60 per cent pay cut agreed between Rugby Australia and the players’ union and sign up for the federal government’s JobKeeper scheme.
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They’re not earning a dime now and banned from training, but for 10 days up until last Friday, they were on full pay while their teammates and fellow Australian players were adjusting to life on roughly 40 per cent of the income they’d signed up for and waiting for the $750-a-week JobKeeper payments to land in their accounts.
All three players are managed by Anthony Picone, who did not return calls but clearly advised the trio to take the drastic step that has sullied their reputations.
The only rational explanation for this move is that Rodda, Lucas and Hockings are so disillusioned by, and distrusting of, RA’s capacity to deliver on the full terms of their contracts, they have moved quickly to be released immediately and cash in on overseas offers before the market gets flooded.
And there is some merit to the madness if that indeed is the strategy.
RA has asked the players to accept the big pay cuts until September 30, with no broadcast deal yet signed that can confirm the full terms of their deals can be met. And there is no clause that allows players to negotiate with foreign clubs once that date is reached, because RA is sticking firmly to the belief they’ll be ready to fulfil all their obligations.
They’ll need some miracle from some broadcaster hiding somewhere, but they live in hope.
In the meantime, most of their staff are stood down, and players are stuck with a relative pittance while resuming full-time training for an as yet undetermined domestic tournament due to start on July 4.
When RUPA negotiated the pay-cut deal with RA last month, six of the top paid players were given six-month sabbatical clauses in their contract given the significant loss of earnings they’d suffer.
They are Michael Hooper, Matt Toomua, Dane Haylett-Petty, Reece Hodge, Kurtley Beale – who RA already knew was headed to France – and astoundingly, Rodda.
So the Wallaby lock can sign a Japanese deal for next season without breaching the terms of his four-year RA deal, understood to be worth around $600,000 annually, making it all the more inexplicable why he has chosen this path.
Lucas is also signed to Queensland until the end of 2023, while most perplexing is the stance of Hocking, who is off contract at the end of the season and is free to sign anywhere from the end of November.
The Japanese Top League doesn’t start until January, and if rumours are true that Hockings is being pursued by Suntory, surely the glamour club will understand why he can’t join their pre-season until his Australian obligations are done.
As for Rodda and Lucas, if they are so convinced RA and the Reds won’t be able to pay them in full by the time they get a broadcast deal signed for 2021 and beyond, take that case to their employers and seek a release.
That they’ve essentially crossed the picket line when their mates have stood firm for the good of Australian rugby, and are now exploring their legal options, will perhaps earn them a fortune in foreign money but peanuts in local support.
Rugby trio forever tainted by standing apart
Stuff the 60 per cent wage cut deal we took weeks to thrash out. Let’s pay all of you players even less, Jim Tucker writes.
Imagine the burning goalposts and uproar if the boot was on the other foot and Rugby Australia had issued that decree.
It puts in some perspective how tone-deaf to the nation’s issues at large was Monday’s head-shaking decision by three players not to accept the agreed call on the pay pain in the game.
No one is saying pay cuts are fair or without warts but nothing is in these trying times.
One theory.
Rugby in Australia truly won’t be the same even after the pandemic and players with rich deals until 2023 just won’t be paid the coin they signed on for.
Players are so nervous at their livelihoods drying up that Wallabies lock Izack Rodda and Reds teammates Isaac Lucas and Harry Hockings are merely at the head of the queue to jump to greener pastures in Japan.
Already, former Reds star Liam Gill seems to have got the jitters about a return from French club Lyon to the Melbourne Rebels because Japan offers more security.
Is the no-pay-cut call by the trio, while Queensland Rugby Union staff are battling to support families, just a way to trigger a moment where they can get out of their contracts to play elsewhere?
It can’t just be player agent Anthony Picone advising them although pushing young non-capped stars to Japan like Hockings and Lucas is lucrative because no club can have more than two Test-playing foreigners on the field at any time.
Hockings and Lucas both have wise brothers with professional rugby backgrounds, smart parents and will have sort legal advice.
Australian rugby is in a mess and it just got messier.
Did “we’re-in-it-together” go out the door because RA has proven itself so poorly run?