Ella has written a fairly critics piece on the signing of Koribete and raised some interesting points.. Reckons the Rebels are making the same mistakes again as when they went out and recruited KB (Kurtley Beale) and JOC (James O'Connor) on big money deals.
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As much as I loved watching Ella play, I put his opinions in the same basket as Growden and Burke's (anyone remember Growden's four point plan to save Australian rugby?).
Ella has previously suggested that the Rebels should play three "home" games a year in Western Sydney. Why don't the Waratahs play there a couple of times a year, 'cause, y'know, Western Sydney is, um, part of Sydney?
About the only parts of that article that I'd agree with is the bit about AFL being good at managing expansion. There are already more kids in Queensland playing AFL than League for example. In twenty years time, when Western Sydney is an AFL heartland people, will be saying that someone should have done something about that.
The bit about JO'C and Beale (and Cipriani to a lesser extent) turning out to be shit recruitments is an easy observation to make in hindsight but a lot of people thought it was genius recruiting at the time.
Time will tell but, the deal with Koroibete is in no way similar. Did he make the same criticisms when the Waratahs signed Izzy? Izzy would no doubt be costing the ARU more each year than Koroibete will. Another "Wallaby quick-fix"?
The bit that pissed me off the most in that article was him writing that it would be pointless for the Rebels or Force to make the finals as they couldn't convert that into commercial success. He doesn't give any examples as to how the Reds or 'Tahs managed to parlay their wins into commercial success.
