Fighting faraway hills
PHILIP BROWNE would be forgiven for casting an envious glance towards Declan Kidney as the Ireland coach channels all his focus into the task of achieving an opening Six Nations victory in Rome tomorrow.
Kidney has one job with one objective: victory. His boss, the IRFU chief executive, has several more plates to keep in the air, however, and in these straitened times it is becoming an increasingly complex task to keep them all spinning.
Browne, though, clearly relishes the challenges, however numerous and potentially stressful, from the possible exodus of star players, the finances of the organisation he heads, the development of rugby from the grassroots up and putting right the mistakes of last November’s Aviva Stadium ticket debacle.
“It’s funny, there are so many hats, with the stadium, there’s ERC, there’s Magners League, the IRFU, at times you feel like you’re debating with yourself, that you’ll meet yourself coming backwards,” Browne says.
“It’s a fantastic privilege to work in sport. I don’t claim that we’ve got it right all the time but we don’t get it wrong all the time either. By and large we’ve done a reasonable job and by we, I mean the provinces as well, where we’ve got some great people.
“We’ve got a great volunteer group as well and that’s often overlooked. I have a board of directors, as do the provinces with their professional game boards, that any company would be happy to have. People with experience in the rugby world and experience of real value from outside the rugby world.”
Those business and rugby brains have their work cut out right now, as several members of Kidney’s squad weigh up offers from both the IRFU and, if reports are to be believed, a slew of rich club owners in France. Yesterday’s confirmation that star turns Brian O’Driscoll, Jonathan Sexton and Jamie Heaslip have rejected those overtures, brought a collective sigh of relief from Lansdowne Road, but Browne realises that French “silly money” will return.
“The overriding desire would be that our international players would be based here in Ireland, for all the obvious reasons. It allows us to manage their playing time and development and the difficulty is, if they go to France, or to the UK, but France in particular, it’s a very punishing fixture schedule and obviously the French clubs only have one particular aim in mind — to meet their objectives, and the objectives of the Irish national team are really not of much concern.
“Whereas for us, in Irish rugby, the way in which we’re structured, for the provinces and the national team, it’s absolutely vital that we do have a very clear focus on where our priority lies, which is on the national team. That’s because the reality is we can’t afford professional rugby unless we sustain the revenues that are derived from the performances of the national team.”
Browne described the Ireland team as “the critical financial element within our particular business plan” and outlined its direct relationship with keeping the Aviva Stadium full at an affordable price and therefore viable. A viable stadium allows the IRFU to continue funding the four provincial set-ups, their stadium developments and so on.
Browne was candid in his admission that the IRFU cannot compete with the financial packages being offered by the French clubs.
“We’re prepared to pay a competitive price and I think we would be happy that the contract values being offered to our top players and indeed to all players are very competitive. We can’t do anything about the French clubs and the French owners who decide they want Dan Carter and they’re going to pay whatever. That’s discretionary spend by wealthy individuals. We’re not in that game.
“We can’t (compete) because if we tried to match some of the crazy figures that have been bandied about we wouldn’t be able to do other things. Maybe we couldn’t afford to have as many players in our professional squads; maybe we couldn’t afford to fund the same level of coaching and the same quality of coach that we have in the professional game, maybe we couldn’t support the amateur game to the extent that we do. So, it’s a balancing act.
“I’m not going to discuss any individuals or names but the bottom line is we know what is a fair value and we offer a fair value. After that, then individuals and their agents have to make up their minds. I don’t think we’ve ever been accused of not being fair.”
There remains the possibility then, that this autumn’s Rugby World Cup in New Zealand could mark the end of an era of the provinces supplying the bulk of the Ireland side. Regardless, Browne is happy that Kidney’s squad will travel Down Under well resourced and in the best possible shape.
“Our record in World Cup has been mediocre. (But) we have a team that on any given day is capable of beating most teams in the world and has shown that over the last two years.
“Declan and his coaching team are there to get the best out of those players and the other part of our job is to make sure we assist in providing a player management system that makes sure that players get to World Cup in the best possible condition and certainly not overplayed from playing 30 or 40 fixtures in the previous 12 months.
“We’ve supported our management and coaching team to the best of our ability in making sure they have what they need and after that it’s down to the individuals to do the best they can.”
To that end, one could expect a return on the investment but the IRFU chief executive said targets had not yet been set.
“That discussion can wait until we see what will happen in the Six Nations... It’s premature. Of course we’d like to get to a quarter-final, we’d love to get to a semi-final and hey, who wouldn’t want to get to a final?
“In terms of setting targets, we want to get through the Six Nations first before we sit down and talk about that... but we would like to get out of the pool and we’ve only managed to (get into a quarter-final) in Australia (2003) and South Africa (1995). So we would hope but it would be premature to, if we lost through injury half a dozen players that paints a very different picture.
Mr Browne’s Boys: Fighting faraway hills for us. It always has done, we’re a small playing base.”
With the World Cup replacing the normal autumn schedule in 2011, there is plenty of time for the IRFU’s committee chaired by John Hussey to assess the way forward for another of Browne’s pressing matters: fair and affordable ticketing for the Aviva Stadium.
The IRFU was forced to backtrack on the eve of last November’s Guinness Series, when the return of the Ireland team to Lansdowne Road was marked by swathes of unoccupied seating as fans stayed away rather than fork out €150 for South Africa-Samoa and €190 for New Zealand-Argentina packages over four consecutive weekends.
This season’s home games against France next weekend and England on March 18 have seen ticket prices adjusted to take account of the economic conditions but the distribution and accounting systems in place are woefully inadequate, with tickets sent down a chain from the IRFU through the provincial branches and then the clubs to individuals before the money then comes back the same way. So laborious is it that the IRFU still does not know how many unsold tickets there were, who has them and how are they going to be paid. Or not.
It sounds archaic. Browne agrees.
“What we have to do — and what we’re certainly looking it — is there’s got to be a better way of managing the ticketing. It’s a system that’s been there a long, long time and worked perfectly all right. Up to now.
“My biggest problem as chief executive of the IRFU was not being able to tell the stadium company how many people were actually going to turn up for the match. I had no idea was it going to be 10,000 or 50,000 and it is farcical and it shouldn’t arise and if I have anything to do with it, it won’t arise again.
“We have information technology, manual systems, all sorts of ways to address this.
“It just requires us to be a little bit smarter. It came to a head because for the first time we had a problem. Now it is a problem and we have to deal with it.”
The fiasco has left the IRFU considerably out of pocket, although, how much is still not yet clear.
“It’s pure guesswork,” Browne said.
“The only thing I can tell is how many people went into the stadium. Now we need to get the facts from the branches. It’s a fair assumption there is a significant once-off loss.”
Throw in the economic downturn, the potential loss of TV money if the Heineken Cup and Six Nations are listed as free to air and the need to keep selling tranches of 10-year tickets for the Aviva, and Browne faces more difficult decisions.
“We’ve been fortunate that we’ve some increases in areas but we’ve had decreases in separate areas.
“We can manage but it’s a marginal situation and we have to act accordingly. So decisions about expenditure are looked at very carefully.”
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