Rennie takes 30 per cent pay cut

The move by the Wallabies coach is in line with pay cuts taken by other senior executives within Rugby Australia.

Dave Rennie is due to arrive in Australia in mid-July Picture: AAP

There was further evidence that Australia may have recruited the right man for the position of Wallabies coach when Dave Rennie contacted Rugby Australia chief executive Rob Clarke on Thursday to voluntarily take a 30 per cent cut in his pay.

RA director of rugby, Scott Johnson says Rennie told him at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that he would drop back to whatever level other employees were on.

While former RA CEO Raelene Castle had hinted heavily that Rennie would be asked to take a pay cut in line with everyone else at rugby headquarters, Clarke had initially ruled out him taking a reduction.

“Dave Rennie brought this up to me a couple of months ago,” Johnson told The Weekend Australian. “And anyone who knows Dave Rennie like I do …. there is no way he would have come into Australia and coached without accepting what everyone else was accepting. There is no way he would have done it. He brought it up of his own volition and we never needed to discuss it again. This is not a last-minute decision. He has been speaking with players, coaches, all this time throughout the crisis. This (his salary) was not at the forefront of his mind. It’s like, ‘I’m doing what everyone else is doing.’”

Over a dozen RA senior executives agreed to accept a 30 per cent reduction in their salary through to the end of September, the same time that the average 60 per cent pay cuts brokered between RA and the Rugby Union Players Association (RUPA) run out.

Rennie’s sacrifice works out to around $75,000 over the remaining three months, based on his reported contract of $1 million.

The former Glasgow Warriors coach will not arrive in Australia until mid-July, after returning to his native New Zealand to visit his extended family. The hope is that he will not have to serve a 14-day isolation period on both sides of the Tasman. But once he arrives in Australia, it seems it is far from settled that he will live in Sydney, with Brisbane or the Gold Coast looming as alternate bases.

Watch Bledisloe Cup Classics with Kayo. New to Kayo? Get your free trial and start streaming instantly >

Meanwhile, RA is slowly gathering momentum in its attempt to bring some measure of control to player agents. As a result of his meeting with the state’s high performance general managers on Thursday, Johnson has written to World Rugby seeking clarity on agents’ behaviour.

It is also understood that the Rugby Union Agents Accreditation Board is examining instances where agents are also acting as coaches, while there are even more disturbing reports of teachers working in the sporting area in major high schools acting as accredited agents for the NRL.

However, the NRL is proving something of a role model for RA in its dealings with player agents, which in rugby league comes directly under the control of the governing body. In rugby, however, they are allied to the Rugby Union Players Association. That seems to be one area that needs to be clarified in the Collective Bargaining Agreement to be negotiated before the end of the year. There is, in particular, a push for rugby to prevent agents from signing players before they reach 18. At present, players of any age can be signed if agents secure their parents’s written consent.

Brumbies captain Allan Ala’alatoa, meanwhile, has insisted he has no plans to be leaving Canberra or Australian sport, despite the ongoing uncertainty about whether rugby wages can continue at their pre-pandemic levels. While the threat of players heading to Britain or France is diminishing, as pay rates there drop alarmingly, the Japanese market – though technically in recession – remains strong. But the real danger appears to be emerging in the United States where Major League Rugby teams are making plays for Wallabies Tom Robertson and Jack Maddocks.

Ala’alatoa, however, is staying put to help the struggling code rebound.

“I’ve just totally focused everything on this year, just making sure I do everything I can for this franchise, because I’m really unsure of what next year holds, but that’s for a lot of players,” Ala’alatoa said.

“For me, I’ve inked my deal until 2023, I think it is, so my plans are to stay here and fight it out and to help Australian rugby get back to where it was both here at the Brumbies and at the Wallaby level.”