Aussie Player Exodus

[Slim 293]

You get to sleep in your own bed after most of those games though..

And you don't spend half the year travelling between Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa...............

Traveling around Australia alone is bad enough...............

 

[Omar Comin']

Oh come on. Australian Super Rugby players currently play 2 games a season in South Africa. The rest of the time they are in Australia and New Zealand. And they fly everywhere so the journeys aren't very long.

It's really not that bad. There are many professionals, and in fact other sports people that have much worse travel schedules than that!

Players spend a lot more time away from home with the Wallabies than with their Super Rugby team. But you don't hear people complaining about the poor players having to spend a month in Europe every year on the spring tour.

 

[Quick Hands]

No. It's gone.
It was effectively an extension of the tax free threshold up to 30% of your income.
If you earned 100k euros. You would be tax free on 30k and then normal tax rate (bloody high in France) on the rest.
Now there is in fact a surcharge on all salaries over 250k varying from 2%to 4% if you earn over 250k and 500k respectively.
And yes. You play more games but you don't at all 26. Squads are larger and you get a rest. Say the best play 20. Your largest commute in France would be like Bordeaux to Grenoble. Yes a long train ride but no more than 8 hours and the same Timezone. Worst case you're away for two days versus two weeks when you go to SA.

I agree, although I'm not sure they make those long trips by train or bus. A few years back I went to watch La Rochelle and Oyonnax at La Rochelle and the only bus the the Oyonnax players were taking was the one to La Rochelle airport to fly home.

 

[Quick Hands]

Oh come on. Australian Super Rugby players currently play 2 games a season in South Africa. The rest of the time they are in Australia and New Zealand. And they fly everywhere so the journeys aren't very long.

It's really not that bad. There are many professionals, and in fact other sports people that have much worse travel schedules than that!

Players spend a lot more time away from home with the Wallabies than with their Super Rugby team. But you don't hear people complaining about the poor players having to spend a month in Europe every year on the spring tour.

But even when they play in New Zealand, they fly over a week before and spend the week there before they play. If for example the Waratahs play Saturday night in Sydney, they are at the airport first thing Sunday morning to fly to NZ. The same when they go to SAF. Brumbies and Reds do the same. It's in stark contrast to the league guys who fly over on the Friday to play Sunday.

It's not the length of the journey, it's the time away from home.

 

[Omar Comin']

But even when they play in New Zealand, they fly over a week before and spend the week there before they play.

Do they all do that? Seems like an unnecessary expense for the teams. I can understand them staying in NZ for a week after a game if they play 2 Kiwi teams in a row, but why would they need to be there a week before the first game?

Maybe the Brumbies, Rebels etc could save some money here and keep the players happier at the same time!!


But even considering this, the teams would still only spend a max of 2 weeks in New Zealand every year. So 2 weeks in New Zealand, 2 in South Africa. Not that bad IMO. A lot of people spend a lot more time than that away from home for work. Many that make a lot less money than professional rugby players!

 

[Quick Hands]

Do they all do that? Seems like an unnecessary expense for the teams. I can understand them staying in NZ for a week after a game if they play 2 Kiwi teams in a row, but why would they need to be there a week before the first game?

Not sure about Rebels and Force but the others do. It seems to be the prevailing wisdom in Australian rugby, to get there as early as possible regardless. I've never worked out why blokes who can barely walk are at the airport 12 hours after they've played to fly to NZ.

 

[Braveheart81]

That isn't generally true to my knowledge. The east coast Aussie teams generally head over to NZ on a Thursday for a Saturday game.

The Wallabies have switched betweeen spending the week there or doing the fly over on Thursday thing.

 

[RugbyReg]

Most just fly over the Thursday before. I believe the Reds stayed over there this season gone because it overlapped ANZAC weekend, and it was a short turnaround, but I believe SANZAR paid for the extra cost, as it was a scheduling issue.

But most teams will just fly back and across.

 

[Highlander35]

Rebs stayed longer this season, but that was because of back to back NZ games.

Wellington did the same for their Australian games. Flew in to play the tahs, then moved down to Melbourne for the week, trained at Linen House Centre (St Kilda Training ground) before the Rebels game.

 

[Quick Hands]

That isn't generally true to my knowledge. The east coast Aussie teams generally head over to NZ on a Thursday for a Saturday game.

The Wallabies have switched betweeen spending the week there or doing the fly over on Thursday thing.

Well my wife works for Qantas, and I can assure you that limping Waratahs are regular Saturday/Sunday morning travellers after Friday/Saturday night games.

 

[GaffaCHinO]

Oh come on. Australian Super Rugby players currently play 2 games a season in South Africa. The rest of the time they are in Australia and New Zealand. And they fly everywhere so the journeys aren't very long.

It's really not that bad. There are many professionals, and in fact other sports people that have much worse travel schedules than that!

Players spend a lot more time away from home with the Wallabies than with their Super Rugby team. But you don't hear people complaining about the poor players having to spend a month in Europe every year on the spring tour.

It's was reported a couple of years ago that the Force are the most traveled sporting team in the world.

 

[Braveheart81]

Well my wife works for Qantas, and I can assure you that limping Waratahs are regular Saturday/Sunday morning travellers after Friday/Saturday night games.

I was only addressing when they arrive for games but I agree with this. Generally they do get on the plane first thing in the morning after a match.

The thing I was disagreeing with was the premise that generally Australian teams spend a whole week in NZ in the lead up to a Super Rugby game.

 

[Quick Hands]

Although, whichever is correct, I think it's unarguable that super rugby teams and players spend a lot of time away from home, whereas French and English club teams rarely do. With Argentina and Japan involved this won't decrease. At least Japan is on roughly the same time zone, but travel to South America is difficult as it often involves multiple sectors and delays between connections.

 

[Braveheart81]

Absolutely. The amount of travel is monumentally different for a player playing for a French club versus a player playing Super Rugby and for the Wallabies.

 

[Omar Comin']

Yep, but it's only ever the Super Rugby part of that which gets criticised. As if Super Rugby is this impossible travel burden that players can barely endure. But the fact is it only involves about 3 weeks away from home for our teams. A lot less than the amount of time the Wallabies are away.

Travel is a reality of international rugby and players are well compensated for it. They don't have it nearly as bad as tennis players or formula 1 drivers.

 

[Marcelo]

Although, whichever is correct, I think it's unarguable that super rugby teams and players spend a lot of time away from home, whereas French and English club teams rarely do. With Argentina and Japan involved this won't decrease. At least Japan is on roughly the same time zone, but travel to South America is difficult as it often involves multiple sectors and delays between connections.

That will be worse for them. The Argies and Japanese will be part of the South African conference, ie, they will live for several months in SA. I hear that could accommodate eight games at home but for the others games they should live in SA. That's hard

 

[Quick Hands]

Yep, but it's only ever the Super Rugby part of that which gets criticised. As if Super Rugby is this impossible travel burden that players can barely endure. But the fact is it only involves about 3 weeks away from home for our teams. A lot less than the amount of time the Wallabies are away.

Travel is a reality of international rugby and players are well compensated for it. They don't have it nearly as bad as tennis players or formula 1 drivers.

But the Wallabies are all super rugby players so it's cumulative.

No-one said it was an impossible burden, but when you have a choice which involves better money and sleeping in your own bed every night, the choice becomes more and more attractive.

 

[Slim 293]

Yep, but it's only ever the Super Rugby part of that which gets criticised. As if Super Rugby is this impossible travel burden that players can barely endure. But the fact is it only involves about 3 weeks away from home for our teams. A lot less than the amount of time the Wallabies are away.

Travel is a reality of international rugby and players are well compensated for it. They don't have it nearly as bad as tennis players or formula 1 drivers.

3 weeks?

Probably double that when you factor in 2 weeks away in South Africa, plus about half a week away for another 6 away games, and then a bit more if you make the finals............

So anywhere between 5 - 7 weeks away from home?

And then if you make the test team you spend a lot of time away in training camps, plus another month or so of travelling around half the world just for the Rugby Championship - Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina - that's seriously fucking nuts for a sporting tournament..........

And then after that you've got another 6 weeks up north for the end of year tour..............

Now, if you've got a young family at home, and you've got the opportunity to earn a significantly greater amount of money, spend more time at home and have a travel schedule that encompasses a country the size of NSW, well...............

 

[Omar Comin']

I meant 3 (sometimes 4) full weeks away. When it's 2 or 3 days at a time I don't think it's so bad.

And the extra travel is mitigated to some extent by the fact they get more weeks off than their French playing counterparts.

that's seriously fucking nuts for a sporting tournament....

That's the way sport is becoming! The world is shrinking. I mentioned tennis before. Look at what those guys and girls have to do. Most of the top 100 play in over 20 tournaments every year. All in different cities in every continent.

Yes it's obvious that for some players with young families (generally those guys near the end of their career) the lower amount of travel in Europe is a big positive. But there's no point trying to keep those guys who say that is the most important factor in their decision making. Those same guys would quit the Wallabies even if they could remain eligible. Because if they were playing in France and still representing the Wallabies they'd actually spend even more time away from their new home than they did before!

 

[TOCC]

I meant 3 (sometimes 4) full weeks away. When it's 2 or 3 days at a time I don't think it's so bad.
!

As someone who is away for around four months a year with work I can attest they are as bad as each other, travelling for 3 or 4 days every two weeks is just as much a burden as been away for a 3 week stretch.. Especially if it's multiple connecting flights and a hectic schedule.

The point is you are still away from home, you miss out on birthdays and special occasions, which is especially pertinent for those with families, but it's also fatiguing as you lack a set schedule and travel through/work within multiple time zones.

There's no denying the travel burden that Super Rugby players are put through, a Wallaby who plays all tests and super rugby matches could be away from home for up to 4 or 5 months a year.. There's few other codes which equal that travel schedule.