The AFL and NRL have lost the plot
Image-conscious decisions, bizarre appointments and ineffectual executives – just what are the AFL and NRL doing?
At last year’s AFL grand final luncheon at the Palladium at Crown, former Brisbane Lions captain Jonathan Brown interviewed chief executive Andrew Dillon on stage. At one point, Brown asked a tongue-in-cheek question about whether Dillon ever felt compelled to phone NRL counterpart Andrew Abdo after a few drinks to tell him how terrible rugby league was to watch.
“You don’t have to be drunk to know that,” Dillon joked, according to people in the room.
It’s easy to poke fun at poor old rugba leeg. Some of us have made a decent living out of it for many years. And rugby league gives as good as it gets.
Yet the AFL’s haughtiness about its rival code starts to fall flat when you consider how shambolic life has become under Dillon since he replaced Gillon McLachlan in late 2023.
The past two weeks, in particular, have been a trainwreck.
In so many respects, the AFL is the superior code, whether it’s TV ratings, crowds, memberships, a genuine national footprint, a draft, or Brian Taylor’s post-match dressing-room interviews.
But it is clearly lacking leadership under Dillon and, of course, its undercover chairman Richard Goyder.
Football types tell you “Dills” is a “top bloke” who needs better people around him but at what point do we stop blaming executive general manager of football Laura Kane for the code’s stuff-ups and ask if the chief executive is up to the job?
McLachlan and Andrew Demetriou had Jordan-sized egos and didn’t always get it right, but at least they were prepared to make an unpopular decision.
“We don’t react to media criticism,” Dillon told reporters in Darwin earlier this week about the league’s ham-fisted handling of the Willie Rioli saga.
You could have fooled me. The AFL seems less concerned about making the right decision as the one that protects its image.
That much was clear in January with the manufactured resignation of Carlton president Luke Sayers, who suddenly quit even though the AFL found he had no case to answer for a “dick pic” being posted on his X account.
The AFL put Rioli through the wringer last week as it came to a similarly contrived outcome, suspending him for a match after he’d stood himself down earlier in the day.
Consequently, the AFL is doing to Rioli what it did to Adam Goodes a decade ago, just in time for the Sir Doug Nicholls Round.
An endless stream of box-ticking welcome-to-country ceremonies won’t smother the fact that two legends – Goodes and former Norm medallist Cyril Rioli – don’t want anything to do with the AFL organisation. There are fears Willie is about to do the same.
Cyril Rioli made an appearance at the Suns-Hawks match in Darwin on Thursday night, but it is premature to say his relationship with the sport has mended.
Whatever inclusion and social policy executive general manager Tanya Hosch has been doing all these years either isn’t working or those to whom she reports aren’t listening.
The AFL’s deteriorating relationship with its Indigenous base is matched only by its sloppiness around concussion, which has been put up in lights by the Lachie Schultz episode.
There has been so much finger-pointing, and so many backflips, and leaked audio files in the past few days, it’s hard to keep up with what’s gone down.
“It feels like Richard Nixon’s Watergate, in that the cover-up was worse than the crime,” former Essendon coach James Hird said this week. (Yes, he really said it).
What can’t be covered up is the shameful sight of Schultz being dragged by Collingwood trainers from the field because play was allowed to continue after his thunderous collision with Fremantle defender Jordan Clark.
If that had happened in rugby league, the concussion crusaders who feed off such incidents would still be bashing out sneering columns.
What happened to the tougher concussion protocols the AFL promised following the Shane Tuck inquest early last year? The concussion spotter must have been getting a pie and beer when Schultz was knocked out.
Most of the blame for these issues, along with familiar debates about umpiring, match review, and the tribunal, is being placed squarely on Kane’s shoulders.
If the 34-year-old was appointed ahead of her time because of her gender, as many expect, it would serve as another example of the AFL being more concerned about ticking a box than making the right call.
She’s either up to the job or she isn’t. Dillon needs to make that decision sooner rather than later.
His comment to Brown at last year’s grand final function missed the mark; rugby league thrives despite itself because the game is so good to watch, even if you’re sober.
The NRL’s problem is the hysterical way in which it is run, mostly out of the offices of Racing NSW. It’s become a never-ending Jerry Springer episode.
What the NRL does have is the physicality the AFL appears so desperate to eliminate from its own product, much to the disappointment of rusted-on fans.
It’s for others to decide if Dillon is the right man for the job, but with each passing crisis he is looking as ineffectual as Abdo.
Bears bombshell
Meanwhile, on the latest episode of Jerry Springer, the ARL Commission has appointed a journo as chief executive of the Perth Bears. Sounds about right.
My phone exploded on Thursday when the NRL media release dropped revealing that Seven West Media news director Anthony De Ceglie had been given the toughest job in Australian sport.
Most of the text messages went along the lines of, “WTAF?”
ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys described the former Daily Telegraph deputy editor as a “can-do” man but most already consider him a “yes” man to V’landys.
From all reports, De Ceglie is also a “top bloke” best remembered for putting a comedian on Sydney news bulletins to spice things up.
Let’s hope his time as Bears boss works out better.
How someone with zero experience in running a football club, in a new market like Perth and with limited knowledge of the game, can even be considered for this very tricky role defies belief.
What does he know about building an NRL roster? Pathways? Recruitment? Team culture? Finding the right coach? Finding the right head of football? At least the media releases won’t have any spelling mistakes.
De Ceglie’s shock appointment triggered a few people at South Sydney, who remember he was like a dog with a bone in September 2018 over a sexting scandal involving then captain Sam Burgess.
Now coaching Warrington in the UK, Burgess is supposedly a candidate for the Bears job, but we suspect that could change with De Ceglie coming on board.
Australia coach Mal Meninga remains locked in tense negotiations with the NRL about taking on the job. He’d be a better choice than Brad Arthur.
With his enormous standing and reputation, Meninga could do for Perth what Kevin Sheedy did for GWS Giants in their formative years, although he’d need the right assistants around him. Big Mal struggled as a club coach at Canberra from 1997 to 2001.
We sincerely hope De Ceglie’s appointment isn’t just about getting Seven West Media onside ahead of TV broadcast negotiations that will define V’landys’ legacy, or pacifying West Australian editor-in-chief Chris Dore, who has got right up the NRL’s nose with his masthead’s recent coverage of the Bears.
Dore ran a front-page story last week slamming WA Premier Roger Cook for blowing $65m of taxpayers’ money on the Bears franchise.
While the NRL called it “biased coverage”, an alternative view is Dore was merely playing to his newspaper’s audience. De Ceglie would surely understand that.
“The West Australian does not have any beef with a team from the wealthy lower north shore of Sydney given a lifeline to relocate to Perth,” Dore said in a colourful statement to Media Watch on Monday.
“We do, however, have a problem with the state government paying for it to happen.”
He added: “One positive for WA, though: perhaps the imported Bears players might spare some time in between signing autographs for fans to teach the Fremantle Dockers and the West Coast Eagles players how to tackle.”
A new Lomu?
The problem with making a young superstar the face of your code is the intense panic that comes when that face is broken.
When Rugby Australia’s $5.3m man Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii copped an accidental knee in the face from Waratahs teammate Andrew Kellaway against the Queensland Reds, time stood still.
Thankfully, he’ll be OK.
His fractured jaw will stop him from playing for a month, by which time his concussion symptoms will have subsided. Hopefully.
This is now the fourth concussion of his short career.
It means Suaalii’s preparation for the British & Irish Lions tour has been thrown into disarray. Part of the reason Suaalii left the Sydney Roosters was to take on the Lions, who only come to these shores every 12 years.
In an encouraging sign, he was back in the gym this week, according to Tahs insiders.
He can also talk and doesn’t need a straw to eat.
Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt faces an interesting conundrum in the lead-up to the first Test on July 19: let Suaalii get bashed up in the tour match between NSW and the Lions on July 5, or bashed up playing for the Wallabies against Fiji on July 6.
Whatever Schmidt decides, one thing is becoming evident with each passing match in which Suaalii plays: he’s an absolute beast who will leave a bigger mark on rugby than what he could have left on rugby league.
His try close to the line from a set piece against the Brumbies earlier this month was something special.
Former World Cup-winning Wallaby Tim Horan reckons Suaalii can be a Jonah Lomu-like presence at 2027 World Cup. It’s hard to dispute.
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