CARLTON chief executive Greg Swann yesterday branded rugby union administrators as weak for their decision four years ago to avoid a head-on confrontation with AFL when awarding Australia's fourth Super rugby franchise to Perth.
Swann, talking on a panel organised by the Victorian Rugby Union to discuss whether the Victorian sporting landscape could support a Super rugby team should the elite southern hemisphere provincial competition be expanded, said the ARU had missed the boat and had no one but itself to blame. The SANZAR rugby nations - South Africa, New Zealand and Australia - are working on plans to add a 15th team to the Super competition in 2010 with Australia expected to gain a licence for a fifth franchise.
However, Melbourne, which had for so long been favourite to claim the berth, is now being challenged by the options of Gold Coast and western Sydney. It is also possible that an expansion team could be set up in Japan.
Swann said the ARU had shown its hand when it flinched four years ago.
"From the AFL perspective, we actually thought the ARU was soft when they put the new team into Perth," Swann said. "We thought they were very soft in that there was the [comment] that they didn't want to come and take the AFL on.
"You can't have a code that's run like that. You've got to get in. It [Melbourne] is the sporting capital of the world.
"They've actually maybe missed the boat because in the meantime the AFL has gone from strength to strength."
Swann was joined on the panel by representatives of Australia's four football codes, with Melbourne Storm chief executive Brian Waldron (rugby league), Victorian Rugby Union president Gary Gray, Melbourne Victory chairman Geoff Lord (football) and former Wallabies utility Julian Huxley.
Gray agreed that bypassing Melbourne - a decision made by an ARU that was then led by Gary Flowers, who has since been replaced as chief executive by John O'Neill - had been a "wrong decision and it lacked quite a bit of foresight about the importance of this market of growing this game nationally".
"I think we've been pretty weak-kneed. I think we are our own worst enemy. I think we've given them all a start, but surely that contention [of the AFL being too strong] is nonsense," Gray said.
¡ The Kangaroos re-emerged as contenders to draft Ben Cousins only to be thwarted three days ago by the club's major sponsor, Mazda. Brisbane have also gone cold on Cousins, leaving St Kilda as the only likely home for the former drug addict. He is expected to nominate for the draft.
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