By Andrew Webster
We all sat there, just under five years ago, in the Messenger Room at League Central as a new dawn broke for rugby league.
Not only did the game have a new shiny, silvery headquarters but it also had new leaders: the independent commission the game had been craving for years, maybe even a century, that ended the unhappy post-Super League marriage between News Ltd and the ARL was finally here.
"This is without doubt an historic day for the game," said its chairman, John Grant, who was widely unknown to fans except those who recalled him playing on the wing for Queensland and Australia in the 1970s.
Fast forward to Friday morning. A combative Grant is on the phone to Fairfax Media following a week of headlines about the commission he is about to work with — but excited about the years ahead.
Critics: Australian Rugby League Commission Chairman John Grant.Credit: Christopher Pearce
The NSWRL and QRL have been suspicious of each other for a hundred years or more.
On Monday, a group of powerbrokers flew to Brisbane and a deal was brokered to ensure the two leagues and now two NRL-club appointees would take their place on the board.
As those who painstakingly put the commission together in the first place immediately asked: will the QRL delegate be thinking what's best for Queensland or of the greater interests of the game whenever he votes?
Come the end of the week, current commissioners Jeremy Sutcliffe and Graeme Samuels were also gone. With Chris Sarra also indicating earlier this year that he would stand down at next month's annual general meeting, there will now be a 5-4 split between independents and those appointed by the leagues and clubs.
Within the space of a few days, the independent commission suddenly became sort of independent.
"It's been cast as rats leaving a sinking ship – that's bullshit," Grant said. "Jeremy told me in September 2015 that when he saw his broad calendar in the other director roles that he had, he would be travelling overseas for a good part of 2016 and that he should stand down. I said, we are dealing with broadcast rights and stadium [issues], and I need you to stay. Graeme has been invaluable over the last three years but his work is done. He was coming up for re-election and doesn't want to stay. He is not a footballing person and now the agenda of the commission is football."
Grant brokered a deal just before Christmas with angry NRL clubs over a backflip on a Memorandum of Understanding struck a year earlier that would see a 130 per cent increase in club funding.
Privately, some couldn't believe their luck. A guaranteed increase before the NRL had signed off on its collective bargaining agreement with the Rugby League Players Association seemed too good to be true.
When the commission tried to go back on that deal it was little wonder Club Land's most powerful figures, with as much political nous as those at Macquarie Street, worked the numbers and then held a gun to Grant's head to ensure they received what they had been promised.
Grant had been schooled in classic rugby league politics.
"I don't think it does any good for the game to launder its dirty clothing in the open air," Grant said. "The behaviour that causes people to get into that megaphone diplomacy does not work. For our part, it is unfortunate that a lot of the agenda that has been aired in the media has been around money, particularly when the commission's focus in the last five years has been about laying the foundations for the growth of this game on a sustainable basis. The important thing from now is the agenda has turned back to football and the development of the game."
Grant and the commission argue that they have made significant strides since that optimistic morning at League Central in February 2012.
New stadiums in Sydney and Townsville have been secured. On the field, the punch and shoulder charge are gone and concussion is being taken more seriously. There's an Integrity Unit: the busiest office in the game.
But, as always, the most important "foundation piece" is money and on that score Grant and the NRL clubs have widely differing views.
On one side, clubs will claim the commission is blowing money, hand over fist.
As outlined by Fairfax columnist Roy Masters on Friday: "Critics point out that the ARLC, with its eight independent directors, has been operational six years, turned over $2.5 billion in revenue, yet made a loss last year of $37 million and is anticipated to announce a $50 million loss at next month's annual meeting."
One the other hand, League Central points out that clubs, in general, cannot help themselves. Non-player expenditure across the 16 NRL franchises has gone from $30.1 million in 2011 to $93.1 million in 2015.
Translation: clubs are blindly throwing money at high-profile coaches and sports science and technology, thinking a premiership, a top-four finish or even a place in the playoffs will improve their overall financial position – or even drag them out of the mire.
The Sharks, who won the premiership last year, were ranked second-last on football department expenditure.
The NRL also claims that it has grown revenue outside the two massive broadcast paydays its received in the last five years. Since the formation of the commission, revenue has grown by an annual compound rate of 14 per cent. If the league was a top 50 ASX-listed company, that would rank it third.
"The game has been able to generate revenues that are substantially higher than they were in 2012," Grant says. "Having said that, on the commercial front, we're still half of what the AFL does so there's a lot of upscale to be done."
What the financials of rugby league don't explain is the mood of the game and its fans.
Grant bemoans the damage an off-field incident does to the image of the code, especially those who are ambivalent about their interest.
The rusted-on fans, however, see deals done with clubs just before Christmas to ensure Grant stays in his position until the end of his tenure and roll their eyes, thinking about the bad old days when blazer wearers and jock sniffers controlled the game.
Before Grant hung up the phone on Friday, he wanted to make it very clear the renewed focus of the commission would be "football".
Former Nine boss David Gyngell, former News boss John Hartigan and former ARL boss John Quayle have all been thrown up as possible commissioners – three men who understand the game as much as the politics of it.
The game should be so lucky to have them. But would they want to do it?
"That's where the focus of the commission will now move – football," Grant said. "The statement that we need more football experience on the commission is a real and true statement in the context of the next phase of the commission's agenda."