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This was published 7 years ago
Parramatta Eels' Semi Radradra's move to French rugby side Toulon offers a lesson for rugby league
By Steve Mascord
There was something in small print of Parramatta's announcement that Semi Radradra would return to rugby union that was intriguing.
The Eels, at best, will last until the first week of October in the 2017 NRL campaign. Many will be tipping them not to get too far past August. But chief executive Bernie Gurr said: "the club will not release Semi from his 2017 obligations to our club; accordingly, the earliest Semi could commence at Toulon is early November 2017".
Brief, and ill-conceived spell in the Kangaroos jersey: Semi Radradra.Credit: Getty Images
Leaving aside the fancy punctuation, there was a very stern message therein. Although French rugby union's Top 14 competition begins in August, and despite Radradra being logistically unavailable for as few as two weeks, the Eels won't let him leave until his contract runs out.
He could have almost two months doing absolutely nothing.
And as far as Discord is concerned, that is completely justifiable. Radradra stands at the intersection of two basic philosophical arguments regarding professional sports.
On one side is the belief that it is about nothing but winning, that players just have to be good and nothing else matters. On the other is the idea that clubs represent communities, players are role models and everyone has to champion a certain set of values.
On the field, there's no doubt Radradra's been an asset to the game, topping try-scoring charts, breaking club records, winning multiple winger of the year awards. But off it? We've hardly heard from him and all we know about is court appearances and walkout threats.
Surely Australia must regret invoking the residency rule for the first time in living memory to pick him for his lone Test. It was an abrogation of the leadership role the country should play in the game worldwide and puts Darren Smith's call-up from St Helens in 2003 in the shade when it comes to historical international-capping curiosities.
The belief of the NRL and its supporters that it has some right to dominate the player market comes from the false economy created by the very specific range of skills required by rugby league players.
If rugby league was a bigger sport, or if the skills were more transferable to rugby union, the NRL's current wealth would not be sufficient to stop the drain of most players to bigger markets, as happens in other sports.
Being a small game actually helps the Australasian competition stop more players leaving. If we get the mooted professional league in the US over the next three years, that might change.
Either way, the NRL will eventually have accept it is merely one of many competitors in the labour market for rugby-oriented athletes. They will come and go – and when they come, rugby league's structures need to be strong enough to ensure they don't take anything with them when the leave, that we are not significantly worse off upon their departure.
The Australian team institution was not strong enough to resist the fact that he was a good player. Thankfully, State of Origin was.
The officials who created and forced through the rule demanding players live in NSW or Queensland before the age of 13 in order to represent those states should take a bow – the rules stood up to Radradra and showed rugby league to be a big enough sport to put principles above winning and talent.