The ARU shafting forwards

[disco]

Dunning's ongoing contractual negotiations with the ARU have highlighted how Australia continue to undervalue their front-rowers - despite the fact that most of the Wallabies' woes over the past five years can be traced back to a weak scrum.

Yes we have had a soft front row for the last 5 years but what Dunning fails to point out is that he was part of it.
That's a good way to get a pay rise remind the boss at how shit you've been.

 

[TOCC]

Do your google due diligence, and you will find the pay of good tight heads (and even looseheads) is significant in Europe.

Cast your eye over your favourite rugby team and who do you think is the best paid? Maybe that wing, with the dazzling sidestep and a kit bag full of hair gel? How about the fly-half with the boot of gold and a smile to melt your mother's heart? Think again. Think the tighthead prop, the best of whom are earning a cool quarter of a million pounds a year.
Based on their rarity value and specialist skills, props -and particularly tightheads -have been the subject of almost every significant tug of war in this year's transfer market. And when the player on the end of the rope is, say, the 6ft, 19st tighthead Kees Meeuws, it takes quite a tug. Meeuws quit his French club Castres in June after a fall-out with the coach and Harlequins, desperate to sign big in the front five on their return to the Premiership, offered pounds 130,000 a year for the 32-year-old veteran of 42 All Black Tests. They were not even close. Meeuws could name his price at more than pounds 200,000 a year, including a house and a car, and another French side, Agen, paid it.

Hayman and Sheridan have two of the higher contracts in the Premiership. BJ Botha and CJ vd Linde are the two highest paid props in the Magners League, and earn in the same wage bracket as O'Driscoll, Williams, O'Connell etc. Tighthead Kees Lensing was the highest paid player in South African when he was lured from the Bulls to the Sharks a few years back. A good tighthead is a rare commodity, and his services are valuable.

ah, as inspiring as that article is, im not one who takes a colorful bit of journalism as fact, potentially there are a few THP's in high pay brackets, but to say that THP's in general are the highest paid players is clutching at straws.

Sonny Bill and Gaz are getting more than that.

Careful reading would have seen that that article was written in 2006. Player's salaries across the board has increased since then.

so you actually have zero evidence to back up your claims then?

The water is in front of you mate. Take a drink.

as previously stated:

ah, as inspiring as that article is, im not one who takes a colorful bit of journalism as fact