NIGEL WOOD was our guest on the League Express Podcast last week, less than 24 hours after he had won the support of the vast majority of clubs at the RFL Council meeting, who almost unanimously voted for him to become the Chairman of the RFL.
As I understand it, the only club that voiced opposition to him was Hull FC, but I’m not sure why they wanted to vote against the majority.
Maybe it’s because the Hull club apparently believes in a 10-team Super League, which certainly doesn’t accord with Nigel’s thinking.
Our host Jake Kearnan and I were able to spend an hour talking to Nigel about the future of the game in this country and what his priorities were likely to be in his new role.
If you haven’t seen or heard the Podcast, I recommend you take the opportunity, either watching it on YouTube on the Total Rugby League channel, or listening to it on one of the podcast platforms (Spotify, Apple Podcasts and so on).
It’s interesting to note that much of the anti-Nigel Wood commentary on social media from various pundits and ordinary Rugby League supporters appears to have died down significantly since people have had the opportunity to watch or listen to the Podcast.
That doesn’t mean that Nigel is beyond criticism, but what is clear from our discussion with him is that he is totally committed to Rugby League at all levels of the game and he is determined to improve its financial health while taking the game forward with a higher profile.
And he’s prepared to work with any individuals or organisations who can help achieve those objectives.
That includes IMG, whose contract with Rugby League some people were apparently expecting him to terminate.
Instead he went to meet IMG last week after appearing on the Podcast. He apparently had a frank discussion with them about where he sees their strengths and how they could be applied more effectively in improving the profile of the game and its players.
I’ve known Nigel a long time and I can confirm that he has always had the best interests of Rugby League at heart.
But during his stint at the RFL as its chief executive, which ended in January 2018, he wasn’t always effective at setting out his achievements to the wider public, which he now acknowledges.
However, it’s important to bear in mind that Nigel isn’t returning to the RFL as its chief executive but as the Chairman of its Board of Directors.
Tony Sutton will remain as the RFL CEO and he is the full-time employee who will answer directly to Nigel and the other members of the RFL’s new board of directors.
Nigel is not an Executive Chairman and he will therefore be working in an honorary capacity, not drawing a salary but only drawing his expenses.
And the same is true of the other new directors.
That fact alone will save the RFL and RL Commercial roughly £250,000 per year, which it was paying collectively to the previous non-executive directors of both organisations.
But from now on Nigel and his fellow directors and the executives at the RFL will seriously have to deliver the goods and we will be looking closely at the decisions they make, particularly as far as the strategic review is concerned.
Nigel hadn’t wanted to speak directly to the media until he was confirmed as the RFL Chair, which means that from now on he can speak with the authority that that office gives him.
And if he and his colleagues carry on being as transparent with the media as he was with us last week, then I’m sure the new regime at the Etihad Campus will garner some strong support from everyone who has a stake in the game.
Wales ready for turning?
I NOTICED last week that the Welsh Rugby Union indicated that it is considering fierce cost-cutting measures to try to stem the losses it is currently suffering.
It currently finances four regional teams in the United Rugby Championship, which also has teams from Ireland, Scotland and South Africa.
Rugby union in Wales used to be almost a religion, but those days have now long gone.
It is now a shadow of what it used to be and I think it’s fair to say that in Wales there is now far more interest in football than in rugby union.
On the other hand, there are now far more junior Rugby League clubs in Wales than there have ever been, with young players gradually having the opportunity to forge professional careers in our game.
I would guess that current developments in Welsh rugby union can only hasten that process.
Incidentally, the British and Irish Lions played the Wallabies on Saturday in Brisbane and, possibly for the first time ever, not a single Welsh player was selected in the 23-man squad for that game.
It’s an extraordinary decline, when we think back to the quality of Welsh rugby union in those far-off amateur days.
Lions doubts
TALKING about the British and Irish Lions, I can’t help reflecting on the fact that the Australian Rugby Union insisted that the Lions tour would rescue their code.
But after a plodding contest on Saturday, in which the Lions beat the Wallabies, the penny slowly seems to be dropping as to how far behind rugby union has fallen in Australia, as no lesser figure than Stephen Jones, the famously anti-Rugby League union writer with the Sunday Times, has recognised.
“Rugby in Australia is desperate for finance and success,” he wrote at the weekend.
“But so too is rugby in the nations that make up the Lions. They need spectacle and crave attention. They also need their Stokes, their Mohammed Siraj, their Jannik Sinner and their Rory McIlroy.”
In other words, most rugby union players are anonymous, which is also true of Rugby League in Britain, but not in Australia.
The total number of viewers who watched the Wallabies clash with the Lions on Australian’s Channel Nine was 772,000, which was well short of the million viewers they had for this year’s Women’s State of Origin, or the four million who watched the final Men’s State of Origin game.