'Pathetic' reality of Australian rugby exposed by Nathan Cleary connection

For rugby in Australia to have relevance, it has to actually develop its own players. In my years observing the game, it would be a stretch to say Tim Horan was a pot-stirrer or an exaggerator. Horan’s comments always come across as measured, rather than hyperbolic.

So if he as he did this week – is flying a kite about Penrith Panther Nathan Cleary potentially coming across to rugby, you have to take that statement seriously. Or at least try to.

I don’t know if Cleary is considering a switch to rugby. Just as I don’t know if he’d have any aptitude for the game.

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What I do know is that rugby union has to get away from talking about or trying to sign high-profile rugby league players.

I’m sure it’s hard for rugby to gain much media traction in Australia, beyond The Roar. From my vantage point in New Zealand, the Australian mainstream sports media appears to serve up a reasonable helping of NRL, AFL, A-League football, UFC, Formula One motor racing and very little else.

Swimming pops its head above the parapet when pinnacle events are on and cricket gets a good go in the summer months, but rugby barely raises a murmur.

The uninitiated assume Australia’s Super Rugby franchises are also-rans, the Wallabies a second-tier Test team and the sport unworthy of much attention at all.

When you win things, people care. When you don’t, you’re an afterthought.

From this vantage point, it appears as if people within rugby in Australia only have one lever to pull when it comes to generating headlines – throw up the possibility of an NRL star switching codes. That’s pathetic.

Develop players. Win games and trophies. Put on a spectacle that people want to watch and talk about.

Don’t try and get traction in the media market by throwing money at Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii or speculate that Nathan Cleary has ambitions to play rugby.

Why on earth would Cleary want to play rugby in Australia? He spent a good deal of his childhood in New Zealand, so I get why he might want a stint here. Or France, England, Ireland or Japan for that matter.

But are you telling me Cleary, who’s steeped in rugby league on both sides of his family, wants to walk away from Penrith to win 50 percent of the time with the Waratahs or Wallabies?

I could see him changing codes for an absurd amount of money. Or to be based in Europe, nearer his partner Mary Fowler.

But please don’t tell me he actually has a burning desire to play rugby union or that there’s any way of knowing if he’d be good at it.

Only none of that matters, really.

No, what’s important is that Cleary to rugby union has become part of the news cycle and, where no public and media interest existed, suddenly there’s column inches galore.

Here I am, for instance, playing my part as well.

It’s just that the bit I want people to take from this is that this is not the way to sell rugby. It wasn’t when Wendell Sailor et al became Wallabies 20-odd years ago and it isn’t now.

The Cleary bit is separate. Whether he does or doesn’t switch codes or is or isn’t a success, is neither here nor there.

It’s the fact that linking his name to rugby gives the game attention. It’s the fact that people think signing a Suaalii or a Marika Koroibete or Suliasi Vunivalu will somehow solve rugby’s ills.

Yep, sign yet another back, when we all know it’s forwards who win rugby games. Yep, send the message that our rugby is stuffed without league players jumping ship. Yep, tell those we already have on our books that we rate you less highly than blokes that don’t even play our sport.

We went through the opposite of this in New Zealand in the early 1990s. We didn’t have a team in the NRL and our national team, the Kiwis, generated little fanfare.

They could win one-off games, but rarely had the talent and consistency to beat teams such as Australia and Great Britain in a series.

Rugby league relied on poaching All Blacks to achieve relevance. John Gallagher, Matthew Ridge and Frano Botica were among the early code-switchers.

Even when the Warriors joined the old Winfield Cup, rugby players such as John Kirwan, Marc Ellis and Mark Carter were swiftly signed. None were especially suited to the game, but their mere presence put rugby league in the sporting shop window.

Every time I see an Australian NRL player linked with a move to rugby, this is what I think of. I think of a publicity stunt on behalf of a code that lacks confidence and credibility. A code happy to trade off deeds done in an entirely different sport.

If and when Cleary becomes a Wallaby, I’ll be curious to see how he goes. In the meantime, I’d encourage Australian rugby folk to try growing their own.

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