Keane P: Parallels between Super League and WSC (04 Apr 95)

PARALLELS BETWEEN SUPER LEAGUE AND WORLD SERIES CRICKET - Patrick Keane of AAP

The turmoil within rugby league rates as Australia's biggest sporting story since cricket was rent asunder by the World Series caravan between 1977-79.

Cricket was changed forever in those two turbulent summers and parallels can be drawn with the anticipated battles over the coming months between the rugby league establishment and the proponents of a super league.

The conservative world that was cricket in 1977 was rocked to its foundations in its centenary of international competition when media giant Kerry Packer entered the scene chasing exclusive television rights.

Ironically, as rugby league celebrates a century since it originated in England in 1895 it is Packer on the receiving end as predatory media rival Rupert Murdoch seeks to do a Packer on the Australian Rugby League.

Kerry Packer left an indelible mark on cricket history as the power and the money behind WSC but, two decades later, is backing the Australian Rugby League (ARL) in its defence against Murdoch's News Ltd.

It's Packer who has the free-to-air television and pay tv rights with his Nine Network and doesn't want to see them disappear or rendered meaningless by a competition that would pale against a league containing the game's best players being aired by News Ltd's tv interests.

In both cases, the first strike by the raider was remarkably similar.

Approaches to players were made on the simple basis of offering the game's performers a considerable pay rise.

For sportsmen with only a limited time at the top, a largescale pay rise offering financial security is always attractive.

Cricketers were a much easier target in 1977 with peanuts their reward for the honour of representing Australia and the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) hardly prepared for the arrival of a driven entrepreneur.

WSC lost plenty of money but it achieved the desired aim of winning exclusive rights when the two parties came together in mid-1979.

Along the way, cricket became a well-packaged high-profile international sport, albeit kicking and screaming.

It could be argued that super league is probably the next step in sport, moving a game to an elite level in which only the best is tolerated and everything below that level is consigned to battling for scraps in sponsorship, players and facilities.

As a comparison, a super league form of cricket would likely see strong sides like Australia, the West Indies and Pakistan joined by big-money countries like South Africa and India to regularly battle for a supposed world championship.

Weaker sides like New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe would not get a look in at the highest level and who knows where a conservative England side would find itself -- perhaps joining those other outfits in a hasty World XI.

The story of WSC was written largely in the courts of Australia and England as the ACB and the International Cricket Council (ICC) fought Packer tooth and nail in the courts before realising the divide had to be bridged.

While the split within cricket ranks in the late 1970s rocked a sport which had prided itself on tradition, rugby league has its foundations in division and acrimony.

The 13-a-side form of rugby had its origins in a split that occurred in England 100 years ago when working class Yorkshire and Lancashire players broke away from the English Rugby Union to form a professional league.

In Australia, a row over financial compensation led in August, 1907, to the formation of the New South Wales Rugby League at a meeting held at a Sydney city pub.

The catalyst had been a severe shoulder injury to representative NSW rugby union forward Alex Burdon which threatened not only his playing career but also his livelihood.

Supporters were outraged by the fact that rugby authorities were not prepared to offer financial assistance to Burdon and it led to a groundswell of resentment against the upper class administration of rugby.

The following year a nine-team rugby league premiership kicked off with the NSWRL having boosted its prospects by securing the services of Australia's finest rugby player, Herbert "Dally" Messenger -- now immortalised in the annual player awards.

News Ltd appears to have pulled off the same coup as the game's founders by hiring the biggest names to ensure its competition is the best.

The only difference is neither the Murdoch camp nor the Packer establishment can claim to truly represent the diehard supporter of the game.