Having ex-Reds player Nic Berry refereeing the Super Rugby AU final was a bad look

Former Reds player Nic Berry refereeing the Super Rugby AU final did not pass the pub test.

Reds five-eighth James O’Connor would make an excellent Wallabies captain

Thank you for your responses to last week’s article. Some are too long to share with our readers. But Eric from Brisbane, a very fine rugby player for Queensland, ended his piece: “If RA adopted the Barcelona membership plan and 30,000 people Australia-wide paid $100 each, it could repay its debt in one year.”

He also said elsewhere: “Like you, I’m unaware of any good case being made out for Rugby Australia to sell part of our game to private equity. In any case, it’s never good to sell at the bottom.”

Brad says: “I haven’t watched a game of rugby this year, except my sons’ Colts games. They were fantastic … The passion is gone. The ARU have destroyed the fan base. I don’t feel it will come back”.

Nancy says: “Membership-based funding is definitely the right answer. The only people who wouldn’t want that are empire-building bureaucrats.”

Zachary writes: “I still have $100 in my wallet, should the unlikely ever occur and us plebs can become voting members of the ARU.”

Nick says: “We, the paying public, have not had a straight answer from the ARU or Rugby Australia for a long time. I initially thought it was because they were avoiding the uncomfortable questions. I’m now of the view that the public were not entitled to an answer, because they ruled the game. Nothing has changed. I doubt RA are clever enough to have thought of the questions, let alone the answers.”

The real concern is that devout rugby fans feel very much on the outside.

Now, a comment about last Saturday’s Super Rugby AU final that saw the Queensland Reds win in a match that went deep into extra time.

There were many twists and turns, all resolved with James O’Connor scoring the matchwinning try in the 85th minute. He would be an excellent new Wallabies captain.

The referee Nic Berry has come in for plenty of criticism, with the Reds winning the penalty count 20-8 and the Brumbies finishing the game with two men in the sin bin. It doesn’t help that Nic Berry played 33 times for Queensland.

Granted, there is no doubt that Berry is a quality referee, but he should not have been given this game.

Surely Rugby Australia’s new CEO, Andy Marinos, should have learnt from his failures at SANZAAR.

The issue around independent or neutral referees has been an issue in Super Rugby for years.

You will recall the recent Super Rugby referee fiasco in South Africa where local referees were hammering visiting teams to the point where the validity of results was seriously questioned.

I vividly remember the Lions versus Rebels game in Johannesburg in 2019 when the local referee, Egon Seconds, smashed the Rebels with a 20-1 penalty count and also issued two yellow cards against the visitors.

Berry refereeing the Super Rugby AU final did not pass the pub test.

To the trans-Tasman version of Super Rugby.

A couple of weeks ago I suggested we honour our Defence Forces by naming the trophy for this competition the Anzac Cup. Hopefully it’s not too late to do that.

It’s a big ask for the Brumbies and the Reds to back up and, to be fair, these are the two Aussie teams we can expect to challenge the Kiwis.

The Brumbies fly to Christchurch to face the Crusaders, who have just nailed their fifth consecutive Super Rugby trophy under Scott Robertson. A tough call.

The Reds also play away in Dunedin against the Highlanders, who are very hard to beat at home. That will be tough on a short turnaround.

I’m not sure why we would agree to sending our best two teams to New Zealand for game one of the competition.

Surely our best teams would be better at home in game one, with so much at stake. Marinos has failed again on the issue of judgment and the defending of Australian teams.

Finally, to the continuing obsession with private equity. Surely it makes sense to address constitutional reform before we sell off the Wallaby jersey.

And, make no mistake, that’s what lies ahead if we don’t make a stand now. Once private equity gets involved, the Wallaby jersey will look like a Formula One car – little more than a background for another brand’s sticker.

Decisions about our game will be made based on a short-term return on investment or profit.

It’s clear that constitutional reform must be addressed before private equity decisions are made.

Most of the readers of this column agree that the Barcelona Football Club model is the best new governance model for our game.

The leaders and administrators are servants of the members and are held to account through elections.

With over 110,000 members, Barca raise over $40 million a year and that is reinvested in the grassroots. It is simple democracy in sport working brilliantly.

We all know that “Turkeys won’t vote for Christmas”. The turkeys we need to get rid of are those at rugby headquarters, refusing to accept the call for constitutional reform.

It will be interesting to see the private equity game play out across the ditch. The administration of the game in New Zealand has lined up the private equity group Silver Lake to buy a slice of the All Blacks; but under the Kiwi constitution, the players have a say in the decision.

The All Black players are against private equity, but they will probably accept the wishes of the NZRFU if they get their share of the Silver Lake cash.

Rugby administrations around the world fall for the same trap every time new money is on offer.

When broadcast deals go up, so do player payments and so does the office headcount. And this is why Rugby Australia are already in debt to the tune of $30m.

The only people who continually miss out are those at the grassroots.

If we are to create positive change for our game and ensure its future, we need a democratic governance model and we need to sort that out before we sell out the Wallaby jersey.

Good luck to our teams playing this weekend. Let’s hope we can compete successfully in what should be called the Anzac Cup.