Axed Force unites for ‘IPL’ revolution
DISENCHANTED Western Force coach Dave Wessels went on the attack yesterday and said “an IPL of rugby” will be boldly born out of the Australian Rugby Union’s court win to shut the Western Force out of Super Rugby.
Mining tycoon Andrew Forrest also ripped into the ARU with renewed venom when promising to launch a rebel Indo-Pacific competition with possibly six teams.
Wessels imagined where the idea was heading as a version of cricket’s Indian Premier League, a competition with well-paid hired stars and teams craving for a shot in higher level rugby.
Forrest said he had retained leading silk, Allan Myers QC, to find a fight plan when he reviewed yesterday’s decision in the NSW Supreme Court that the ARU was entitled to exclude the Force from a new 15club format for Super Rugby next year.
While the gloves will stay on in that fight with Forrest aiming to seek leave to appeal to the High Court, he moved nimbly on another front to fire up another competition for the Force to play in. “We are not giving up remotely ... I’ve just begun to fight,” Forrest said.
Forrest is more advanced with his game-changing idea than most think. It will be a new competition formed by outcasts, a club forced to be rebels, but a parallel rugby competition if it can be treated that way by rugby officialdom.
“Out of great disappointment comes even greater opportunity ... this is the beginning of the new Force,” Forrest said.
He was speaking to a room of Force staff and most importantly a still-united Force playing
group at RugbyWA headquarters where captain Matt Hodgson was in tears.
“Believe me, the Indo Pacific region is strong and deeply powerful with broadcasters, a huge population and fans for rugby and I assure you it (a new competition) will start strongly,” Forrest said.
Forrest has been talking to eager ears like those in Singapore where rugby has a grand state-of-the-art stadium, no team yet big bucks of their own to ignite an Asia Pacific Dragons outfit on a full-time basis.
Hodgson was again appalled he received no call from the ARU over the court decision and said it was lip service to player welfare in an ugly stoush that has stretched beyond 140 days since the call was first made to cut a team.
“You see what the Force means to people for 12 years and it is taken away by a little letter of the law,” he said.
Tears filled his eyes but the most impressive Force stalwart delivered a powerful stance.
He expected a protest would flow over to Saturday night’s Test between the Wallabies and Springboks at Perth’s nib Stadium.
The press conference in WA followed the court decision yesterday where NSW Supreme Court Justice David Hammerschlag dismissed an appeal by RugbyWA against an arbitrator’s decision which backed the culling of the Force.