Western Force, the rugby side that refused to die, are coming for the Waratahs

One of the most shameful periods in Australian rugby history will finally be brought to a close at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

Force players Greg Holmes, Jono Lance and Kyle Godwin go hard at training ahead of their return to Super Rugby against the Waratahs on Saturday night. Picture: Getty Images

One of the most shameful periods in Australian rugby history will finally be brought to a close on Saturday night at the Sydney Cricket Ground when the Western Force returns to the Super Rugby fold in a match against NSW.

This is Western Australia’s State of Origin moment, when all the resentment and rage at how the Western Force was treated before, during and after its culling from Super Rugby in 2017 gets to be played out on the football field.

Super Rugby returns! Watch every game of Super Rugby AU and Super Rugby Aotearoa Live & On-Demand on Kayo. New to Kayo? Get your 14-day free trial & start streaming instantly

It is almost exactly 40 years since Queensland took on NSW in the inaugural Origin match on July 8, 1980. For decades, they had always felt they had been persecuted as NSW used poker machine money to steal their players, put a sky blue jersey on them and then sent them out to defeat the depleted Maroons. As QRL chairman Ron McAuliffe told the Queensland players just before kick-off on Origin I: “If we are beaten, we cannot retreat to any other position. We must win.” And they did, 20-10.

In reality, however, Queensland’s grievances with NSW in rugby league were nothing in comparison to what Rugby Australia – or as it then was, the Australian Rugby Union – did to the West.

It began with the ARU convincing RugbyWA to sign over its Super Rugby licence and intellectual property in February 2016 for $800,000. Ostensibly, WA was to be the first state to embrace what was effectively the centralised NZ model. What the people in the West didn’t know – and what later brought tears to the eyes of those officials who had done the deal – was that they were signing the Force’s death warrant.

Through many a twist and turn, some of which looked likely at times to claim the Melbourne Rebels instead, it was always the fact the Force didn’t own its own licence that doomed it. Of course, no one believed it would come to this and even when the ARU finally announced it would be the Force that was cut, a high-powered group of WA businessmen committed to support the club in its ongoing legal battle.

Ollie Callan gets tackled during a Western Force training session. Picture: Getty Images

Yet not only did they lose in courts but the then CEO of the ARU, Bill Pulver, pursued them for $2 million in costs and damages. RugbyWA chairman John Edwards, one of those who had poured $250,000 of his own money into the battle, said there was no way they could raise that much money.

“I said we could do $400,000 and if that’s not enough we are going to take RugbyWA into VA (voluntary administration),” Edwards recalled. “And he just scoffed at it. And so when I put it into VA, Pulver called me and he was freaking out and said: ‘You can’t do that.’ And I said, ‘I told you. I gave you my best and final offer three times.’

“He said, ‘This is such a bad look.’

“And I replied: ‘What’s a bad look is the mother eating her young, mate.’”

The hits just kept coming. To recoup some of its losses, RA then withheld $100,000 in 2018 from WA’s national strategic grant. Edwards and two other directors again reached into their own pockets.

Then there was the WA Government which, quite rightly, pursued RugbyWA for the money it had poured into nib Stadium to bring it up to Super Rugby standard – only for Super Rugby to disappear from the WA sporting calendar.

“That was $1.4 million. We are still financing it. We had $400,000 forgiven but we have still got $1 million to pay out and we have started that process. We are busy paying that down in easy instalments. It’s an eight-year payout and we are in year two,’’ Edwards said.

It didn’t help that WA’s annual support from RA was cut to 35 per cent, although there is nothing vindictive about that. All states have taken a hit as a result of the global coronavirus pandemic.

At every turn, RugbyWA and its mentor, Perth mining billionaire Andrew Forrest have been blocked and thwarted by RA. It even seemed for a while that they would be denied the use of the name “Western Force” in Forrest’s Global Rapid Rugby initiative.

“Remember also we did the Own the Force campaign and we actually collected $2.5 million and we had pledges for $5.5 million more when we were trying to prove to RA that we were liquid and we could buy back our licence,’’ Edwards said. “Again they (Rugby Australia) did everything they could to stop that from happening because they technically owned the club at the time and we had to give all that money back.”

Relations between RugbyWA and RA have thawed considerably since Hamish McLennan took over as RA chairman. “He has called me five times more than (former chairman) Cameron Clyne ever did, which is to say he has called me five times,” said Edwards with a smile. “He believes we deserve to be here and it was a tragedy what happened and he has apologised publicly. I’m sure a lot of people didn’t like to hear that.”

Edwards was there the night the Force thrashed the Waratahs 40-11 in their final Super Rugby match. Forrest asked if he could talk to the players after the match. No one knew what he would say but Edwards was banking on it being supportive and it was.

He saw that night, July 15, 2017, the power of passion and he expects to see it again tonight at the SCG.

“I think it will be close and I would put my money on the Force, just because of the emotion. The reason to win is there for the Force and it isn’t with the Waratahs and they just don’t have the line-up that they did.”