Anthony Griffin defends his failed Israel Folau bid
St George Illawarra coach Anthony Griffin has broken his silence on the club’s aborted chase of Israel Folau.
St George Illawarra coach Anthony Griffin has broken his silence on the club’s aborted chase of Israel Folau. He insists neither he nor Folau harbour any bitterness or ill-will over the Dragons’ decision to end their interest in the dual international.
Folau, he says, accepts his share of responsibility for the roadblocks that stand between him and an NRL return.
“I understand both the NRL and our club’s decision and so does Israel,” Griffin said. “I have spoken to him. No one is bitter about it. It is just the way it is. He didn’t express emotions. He understands the position he is in and he accepts a lot of responsibility for that.
“There is no major issue there. I just think he still has something to offer and it was worth pursuing to see if there was a possibility at our club and an appetite from the NRL.
“But I totally understand how it has ended up at this point. I respect the decision the board has made and we move on. We are all united about it. There is no second guessing each other.”
The Dragons pulled the pin on their Folau bid on Wednesday night amid fears that they would lose their major sponsor and concern over a list of demands from the NRL that included requests to access his employment records at Rugby Australia and Super League club Catalans.
The Australian understands the NRL asked for a slew of information as part of their Folau inquiries. Aside from his employment records, it is believed they wanted access to his contracts and legal documents associated with his time in rugby union.
The Dragons were already wavering and the final nail was driven in by major sponsor St George Bank amid fears they would walk away from the last year of their deal if Folau joined the club.
St George Illawarra erred on the side of caution and ended their interest in Folau, leaving the club and its board at the mercy of those who saw it as another example of the bumbling leadership at the Red V.
Chief executive Ryan Webb, who in recent days has also had to deal with the departure of captain Cameron McInnes, insisted that was unfair on the Dragons.
“I am not sure how else we could (have handled it),” Webb said. “We had done work for a couple of weeks putting things in place and reaching out to the NRL.
“The timing was based around when the NRL reached out to us with the conditions and what they were going to require to give it consideration.
“It got really obvious this was going to be a drawn-out process. It got to that point where we had to assess it. We went through it all and the board went, ‘well, we can’t say this is worth it now, this sort of distraction and this sort of open-endedness’.
“We didn’t know what the result was going to be. They just said we can’t go again on this. People think it was (outside) noise that did it. The noise sped up other parts and then we considered it.”
The noise was loud and incessant from the moment news leaked of Folau’s potential arrival at the Dragons. The club sensed the leak came from the Folau camp, another reason they walked away after weeks of talks. Above all though, it was the realisation that the process would take a long time to complete.
The NRL gave the club the impression that they were in no hurry to determine Folau’s fate. Given the Dragons have been paying lock Jack de Belin for the best part of two years while he awaits a final decision on his police charges, the last thing they needed was to have more money tied up in a player who was marooned on the sidelines.
The Dragons had set aside upwards of a $1m for Folau over this season and next. They now have that money to spend elsewhere.
“All I know is the working relationship we have with Anthony, myself, (head of football) Ben Haran and the board is fantastic,” Webb said.
“There have been two major things happen this week and from the outside people don’t see the thinking behind the process.
“Losing a great player and great guy like Cam next year is disappointing. But we have to make decisions that are best for the club. We have to back ourselves and back Hook (Griffin).
“It just wasn’t going to work. With the Folau stuff, we were going through a process and reached out to the NRL.
“When they came back with the details we had to reconsider. It might look a bit sporadic but it is considered and I hope in the long term, looking back people will say we have made the right decisions.”
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