Coaches call for parity over rep player pay
THE Australian coaches of the Samoan and Tongan teams say their players should be paid similar amounts to Australian and New Zealand Test representatives in a stinging rejoinder to the sport’s international bosses.
Samoan coach Matt Parish said he wanted to know where the income from the 2013 World Cup in Britain had gone because it had not been distributed to rugby league in the Pacific Islands.
Asked how to close the gap further between the Pacific Islands and rugby league’s tierone nations, Parish said: “Pay us what Australia and New Zealand are getting – I can’t see why you don’t get the same if you pull on an Australian jumper, or one from Fiji, or Samoa.’’
Tongan coach Kristian Woolf said the Tongan players, including late recruits Jason Taumalolo and Andrew Fifita, would get paid about $2000 for their World Cup commitments, which start against Scotland in Cairns on Sunday.
The Australian players have been paid as much as $20,000 a Test in recent years.
“We are working off a $30 a day allowance for our players, which works out to be about $200 a week,’’ Townsville Blackhawks coach Woolf said.
“Through some sponsorships, we should be able to come up with a couple of thousand dollars per player when we cover our expenses first. So the sacrifice some of those players have made is huge.’’
But Wolff said a week in Tonga had hit home to an emotional Fifita why he made the decision to hand back an Australian jersey in the World Cup.
“Andrew has been really enthusiastic. He’s thrown himself into everything we’ve done so far,’’ he said.
“He went back to the village of his grandparents. It was very emotional for him and for his family.
“You only had to look at their faces to know why he’d made the decision he did.’’