Israel Folau refuses to back down, tells Rugby Australia he’s prepared to quit code

Israel Folau has told Rugby Australia boss Raelene Castle that if they couldn’t accommodate his views, he would be happy to walk.

It’s been another week in which rugby continues with its self-inflicted wounds.

It is not believable that the only thing Raelene Castle seems to have done, after months in charge of Rugby Australia, is to haul in ­Israel Folau for comments that he made about homosexual people and the Bible. And then Castle couldn’t wait to rush out to the media after the meeting, as if this was a defining moment of her leadership.

Here was a leader, she wanted to suggest, who could take action. What’s that famous line from The Castle? “Tell (her she’s) dreamin”.

This is not where rugby-lovers expect action to be taken.

This issue has nothing to do, in my opinion, with gays or with the Bible.

This is about the stuff that men and women went to war for and gave their lives to defend.

It is simply called freedom, in this case freedom of speech, and Folau, along with every other Australian, ought to be free to express his views.

But of course Rugby Australia, leaderless and often gutless, are terrified of losing a Qantas sponsorship.

Qantas objecting to what Folau is saying about homosexuality is beyond laughable.

I don’t agree with Israel but I’ve told him most explicitly that he must not back down.

He is entitled to his views.

Or are Rugby Australia going to next tell him what to eat and what time to get up?

Qantas says that it supports LGBTI rights and acceptance. Then we hear from a Qantas spokesman (oops, should that be spokesperson?) and note how such a person purports to speak for the whole of Qantas and believes emphatically that they have a right to have their views accepted, a right they will not extend to Folau.

What is worse, Qantas is saying that it condemns Folau’s comments. Qantas finds the comments disappointing. I beg your pardon? Aren’t Qantas in partnership with Emirates Airlines and aren’t the Islamic injunctions against homosexuality in the United Arab Emirates totally oppressive of homosexuals?

Indeed, some of the militant Muslims urge homosexuals should be put to death.

So do I have this right? It’s OK for Qantas to have a partnership with such a company, yet they want to beat the drum about something Israel Folau has said.

I’ll tell you something Castle didn’t tell the media when she rushed out to meet them after the meeting with Folau.

My understanding is that Folau told Rugby Australia that if they were worried about the sponsorship and the money and they couldn’t accommodate his views, he would be happy to walk. He certainly will not yield to this kind of bullying — my words, not his.

Interestingly, if Israel was a Muslim rather than a devout Christian, I wonder what Qantas would have to say. We should be grateful that it has taken a talented and courageous young athlete to stand up to all this rubbish and ­affirm his entitlement to freedom of speech.

Israel Folau says he is prepared to walk away from rugby.

As for the rest of us, we need to toughen up a bit.

All sorts of things are said about you and me and we could bawl our eyes out about being hurt or a “victim”. It is time we all took a spoonful of cement and toughened up.

If along the way we might have to pay a price to defend critical freedoms, then so be it. Folau seems quite prepared to pay that price.

Raelene Castle, if you’re not going to be a failure before you’ve even begun, start doing something about the mess that the game is in and forget grandstanding about Israel Folau.

Rugby is drowning in problems. I’ve written in this column about them.

Schoolboys rugby is nothing more than an old boys’ club. Our best schoolboys are going either to other franchises such as the Crusaders or to rugby league.

People in charge of high performance, as with cricket, are unable to secure high performance.

Yet the first big play under Castle’s leadership is to summon Folau to explain comments he’s made. Quite frankly, who cares?

As one rugby international wrote to me: “These Rugby Australia people in power, not to be confused with powerful people, are making a mockery of the past, the present and of course the ­future”.

Well, what about the future? Rugby supporters are voting with their feet.

Haven’t Rugby Australia lost BMW, Lion Nathan and Buildcorp as sponsors in recent times? What are you doing about that, Raelene?

Does Rugby Australia spend more time checking with its lawyers than it does with checking the wellbeing of the game? And what about this National Rugby Championship? The competition is a nonsense.

Most rugby people have their kids playing at school or with a club. Then there’s Super Rugby, the provincial competition with more than 15 matches a year. Then there are the Wallabies, our national team, with often more than 15 matches a year.

Add to that the men’s sevens and the women’s sevens, international events with more than 15 matches a year.

And someone wants to add a national domestic rugby competition with another 10 games. There is neither room nor money for such a meaningless rugby event. This outfit folded before. It should never have been resurrected.

The European model is instructive. There, you can follow your team at club level via an English Premiership or a French Top 14 team. The same teams kick on to play in the European competitions, like the Champions Cup, which was the Heineken Cup.

But here, why would our best young Australian schoolboy players hang around to perhaps play eight games in a national domestic rugby competition for $5000 a season when the NRL teams are offering fulltime training, contracts of up to $100,000 and even a place in their 36-man roster.

Wallabies star Israel Folau has angered Qantas over his opinions on homosexuality. Picture: Phil Hillyard

The national rugby competition deal of $5000 for players means Rugby Australia value these players at about $20 an hour. A good tradesman wouldn’t work for that.

In the US, you have school footy on Friday, college footy on Saturday and pro footy on Sunday. Football people can engage and consume the game at every level over three days each weekend. Why wouldn’t Rugby Australia think about these options?

Then again, Cameron Clyne is the guy who said it would take 72 hours to sort out the Super Rugby mess in relation to the Western Force. It turned out to be well ­beyond 72 days.

Do these people have enough experience to run our game and make the big calls needed for our game to survive, let alone grow?

How could anyone in a decision-making position think there would be enough room for a ­national domestic rugby competition? It was a dud and it is still a dud and changing the name from ARC to NRC won’t rescue it.

If Castle has a 100-day plan, she needs to communicate it to the rugby public and she needs to get a move on. Getting rid of the NRC would be a good start. Straightening out schoolboy rugby would be a better start.

Rugby people are voting with their feet. In the year 2000, the Wallabies played New Zealand in Sydney in front of 109,000 supporters at ANZ Stadium. In 2017, we were lucky to get 50,000 for the same fixture at the same venue.

The drop in support for the Wallabies is more a vote of no confidence in the current administration than it is in the players.

In club land, where genuine rugby people have roots, the ARU, now Rugby Australia, stink. And nothing is being done to dilute the anger that the clubs have for the national governing body. Neglect the clubs, as administrators have done, and failure will follow.

So what’s the big play of the week with rugby drowning in problems?

Summon Israel Folau to explain comments he’s made about gay people. The worst you could say about Folau is he has an opinion.

Rugby leadership in this country barely has an opinion on anything, let alone one you’d agree with. They go missing. They’re silent. Yet now they’re buying a fight with one of their finest employees.

As I said to Israel Folau this week, I disagree with what he said, but I’d be happy to be appointed as his counsel and I don’t charge a fee.

It’s time someone took on some of these no-hopers who are running the game. Running it into the ground.

Alan Jones is a former Wallabies coach, host of the Alan Jones Breakfast Show on 2GB and the Macquarie Radio network and Jones and Co on Sky News every Tuesday night.