Mallett appeals to the IRB

Monday 16th June 2008

Freshly arrived back in South Africa at the helm of the touring Italian side, Head Coach Nick Mallett has called on the IRB to settle on a coherent global calendar and level the playing field between National Unions.

The former Springbok coach said smaller nations like Italy and Scotland will always struggle to compete on the international scene against their richer counterparts unless the IRB establishes rules that give countries equal access to their players.

Part of Mallett's responsibilities at the helm of the Europe's 'sixth nation' is help the Italian Rugby Union develop the quality of the game in their country.

With lot of Italian players plying their trade in places like France, Italy are faced with a chicken and egg conundrum: should they try retain their players to improve the level of their national league or should they encourage them to seek the exposure of higher-level rugby in foreign championships?

"It's a good question. Argentina for example really benefited from the fact that they didn't have a local league that could pay their players enough to stay," said Mallett shortly after arriving in his home town.

"So their top players went to France and to England and quite a few to Italy ironically. So they used the clubs overseas to improve their players - both from a physical point of view and obviously from playing with other good players.

"It's obviously showed, players like (Juan Martin) Hernandez and (Ignacio) Corleto, who I coached at Stade Franšais, had won two French Championships when they faced France in the World Cup so there were very few Argentineans who had any complexes about playing France."

Of course now Argentina are paying the price to certain extent because some of their top players, like Hernandez, are stuck in France, not being released to play for their country.

"That's a problem of a global season and organising fixtures. That should be fixed next year when all the Northern Hemisphere teams should finish by May/June so the June tours should be full strength, barring injuries,"said Mallett

"The problem with Italy's situation is that the budgets are so much smaller than anywhere else in Europe. Toulouse or Clermont or Leicester have budgets of 20 to 25 million Euros while in Italy the best is probably Treviso with four or four-and-half million so it's very hard to keep the top players in Italy if you can't pay them what they can earn in those other countries.

"The real problem for the Italian National side is getting the players together to coach them. To try get the players together in Italy for a camp when they are playing in all these foreign clubs, for this tour for example, is a real nightmare.

"And that's something that got to be handled at the IRB level. There should be rules for all. It's no good that England can afford to pay clubs so that they get their players released one week before Italy and Scotland and Argentina.

"There's got to be a fair playing field for everyone, and particularly for the smaller nations who are struggling to compete anyway.

"So imagine when [England] get two weeks to prepare for a the Six Nations, while we've got Castrogiovanni and Parisse playing club rugby on the Saturday and I get them on the Monday with five days to prepare, I mean it doesn't bare thinking about.

"The club against country thing is a real problem, it's something that soccer faces and rugby is going to have to be very careful about.

"Getting very good salary to play at your club is the bread and butter that's going to pay your bond and put money away for your retirement. Playing for your country is the cream at the top.

"So clubs playing in finals are not going to release their players so (Italy manager) Carlo (Checchinato) has a very difficult job.

"Biarritz for example were very uninterested in releasing players when they were trying to get into the semi-finals. Even when they were knocked out of the semi-finals they were not interested in releasing their players.

"Even for my first little two day camp, they put a lot of pressure on Andrea Masi not to attend because they thought that him not being there for an Monday and Tuesday practice would be detrimental to their preparation and it puts the player in an invidious position. And it's pretty unfair.

"That's why I say it's not something that we can really sort out, there has be a general ruling by the IRB that's fair for all countries participating in international competitions, Six Nations, Tri-Nations, November tours...- that they have adequate time to prepare their players properly."