SECURING A HOME FRONT
We don’t have the big money of the French but our package is the big sell for us, insists IRFU’s contract chief O’Sullivan
IT’S BEEN an industrious fortnight for the IRFU. Amid fears Jonathan Sexton’s exit last January to Racing Metro could open the floodgates to foreign clubs looking to recruit Ireland Test players, the union has tackled the threat head on. They can’t compete financially with the mouth-watering offers of some French clubs, but they believe the complete package they offer to players to stay in Ireland makes up for the shortfall in basic remuneration.
This month they have struck deals with three centrally-contracted players, Conor Murray, Donnacha Ryan and Rory Best. Negotiations are ongoing with Leinster duo Jamie Heaslip and Seán O’Brien and Munster pair Paul O’Connell and Keith Earls, and a pre-Six Nations deadline has been set for that quartet to reach a decision.
‘There are three put to bed and four still to go,’ says Martin O’Sullivan, the Limerick bank manager who is chairman of the IRFU’s player contracting review group (PCRG) that has 20 centralised contracts set aside for the country’s elite Test players. ‘It’s an ongoing process. I wouldn’t say we’re pessimistic or optimistic. You don’t allow yourself those thoughts.
‘You’re just trying to do the deal, but it’s good to have made the three announcements and that’s all positive. We hope to wrap up the contracting in the next three or four weeks and what will be will be at that stage.’
O’Sullivan isn’t directly involved in negotiations − Maurice Dowling, the IRFU director of resources, handles all meetings with players and agents.
However, Dowling goes into these talks briefed by his colleagues on the PCRG that O’Sullivan has chaired for five seasons. The seven-strong committee also features IRFU chief executive Philip Browne, financial director Conor O’Brien, honorary treasurer Tom Grace and former Ireland team manager Pat Whelan.
Despite only losing two Test players overseas in recent years – Tommy Bowe to Ospreys in 2008 (he came home in 2012) and Sexton – the IRFU is often criticised for its handling of the central contracting process. Here, in an exclusive interview, O’Sullivan, who also chairs the national team review committee and is the union’s junior vice-president, insists they are doing a professional job. Liam Heagney [LH]: It has been claimed the IRFU leaves it too late to negotiate deals with star players. Is that criticism valid? Martin O’Sullivan [MOS]: ‘This year we made initial approaches to some guys before the Lions in May. That’s as early as it’s going to get. We did approach them all much earlier than in the past because of that criticism.
‘We’re only in control of when we start, not when we finish, and it’s no different this year as every negotiation has two sides to it.
‘We have got to respect the rights of the players and their representatives to check other options and negotiate the best deal for themselves. We’re trying to negotiate the best deal for Irish rugby within the financial constraints.
‘It does drag on. I’d prefer to have them all done in one day but life doesn’t work like that. We’ve three deals in the bag, there are three other offers out there, some for a long time, and one that we just started engaging. That (delay) was his choice.
‘We would be certainly keen to conclude everything by the third week of January because we don’t want stuff dragging into Six Nations which happened last year.
‘That’s the plan at the moment and we’re getting there. I suppose its coming to final offer stuff. It’s make up your mind, lads.’ LH: Has Jonathan Sexton’s exit made the IRFU more inclined to spend additional money? MOS: ‘No, it hasn’t. We have a pot of money and can only spend what it is. People have said to make exceptions but exceptions can’t be made as it inflates everything. We must make business decisions. No one would ever thank us for going broke.
‘The reality is we’ve only lost two marquee players since the thing started (Bowe and Sexton). That is not a bad situation and it indicates we are very competitive.
‘It’s a big market out there. Of all the Test rugby nations, I would say there are less Irish guys who have left than anywhere else. Not that we’d be complacent about it, but it’s indicative of the package we offer.
‘Ultimately, we can’t compete with the megabucks. Even some agents have said the IRFU would be mad to compete. Numerous guys who own clubs in England and France could buy all of rugby, never mind the IRFU.
‘We can never compete in terms of scale but what we want to be is the best at everything we can be. The best strength and conditioning, best coaches, best medical, physio, analysis, nutrition, all those things.
‘We believe we’re well on the way to being world class if not already world class in all those things.
‘People must realise we have to balance the books. We are doing our level best to keep all t he pl a yers here. If one
We’ve a pot of money and can only spend what it is. No one would thank us for going broke
goes, two goes, we don’t regard that as the floodgates opening. We lost one player (Sexton) but we’d love him to come back at some stage.’ LH: Is there usually conflict with agents in trying to strike a deal? MOS: ‘ Not at all. There has to be a small element of conflict. If you’re looking for one thing and I’m looking for something slightly different, we both come in with different positions. ‘But negotiation is what it is and you’re trying to get to a point where you say we both shake hands at the end and say I’m happy with the deal and the other guy says I’m happy with the deal, and you move on.
‘I would say we have working relationships with all of the agents. As with everything some would be better than others. And agents have their own way of doing it too.’ LH: Are the 20 central contracts divided equally among the leading provinces or are they simply given to the best players regardless of who they play for? MOS: ‘We give the contracts to guys we believe are sort of permanent fixtures in an Irish matchday squad. We try and be as fair as we can. It’s not an exact science and it doesn’t matter which province a player is at, but we have now got to the stage where we get it right most of the time. The odd time you mightn’t get it perfectly right and people might crib. We understand that, but it’s not an exact science.’
THIS IS the last season the PCRG will be responsible for the handling of player contracts. It is to be disbanded in 2014, along with the national team review group. Instead, a new high performance director position has been created and a candidate, thought to be Australian David Nucifora, has been offered the job. It will become his remit to allocate the 20 central contracts, and it will put an end to criticism the professional game in Ireland is partly run by amateur officials.
LH: How do you deal with the criticism the IRFU isn’t fully professional? MOS: ‘Player contracts cost us €25million a year. I don’t know how much more we spend on coaches and other paid people, but the people who seem to be top of the line for criticism are the people who don’t get paid at all sometimes.
‘I’m not sensitive about it and it doesn’t bother me that much. In some ways I would have been one of the main proponents of the whole professionalising thing and bringing in the performance director.
‘I just see the way forward as professionals dealing with professionals. It’s difficult for the professionals taking orders from the volunteers.’ LH: So the end is definitely looming for the PCRG? MOS: ‘My understanding and my wish would be that there would be no need for the PCRG, nor would there be a need for the national team review group. We also have a performance committee to which those two report into and that will probably stay intact in some way in so far as it reviews the performance of all representative rugby.
‘If the performance director can take on everything from the academies through to the various Irish age grades teams, plus all professional rugby, then well and good. But the performance committee may have a role to assist him in that.
‘It might also fall more to the performance director to move guys more around the provinces. There’s huge resistance in the provinces, particularly if meritocracy comes in in the Rabo, if the Rabo continues, but at the same time we need to develop our younger players.’ LH: It’s nearly a year since the high performance position was advertised. Why hasn’t a confirmed appointment happened yet? MOS: ‘ We have done the interviews, identified the preferred candidate, but the actual contractual things has yet to be concluded. There are small micro issues, and I suppose the other thing that has impacted on it is we are in a very uncertain environment. The economy, we have soldiered through that one.
‘But the whole situation about professional rugby going forward, we are nearly spectators in some ways (regarding what is going on with the Heineken Cup).’