D'Arcy Waldegrave: Sportstalk host on former Rugby Australia Chair Hamish McLennan urging the governing body to sign Nathan Cleary

Former Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan is urging the governing body to sign league star Nathan Cleary ahead of the next World Cup.

McLennan explained the Wallabies need to invest in 'top-tier' players to improve their performance in high profile events, including the Rugby World Cup and the Bledisloe Cup.

Sportstalk host D'Arcy Waldegrave explains further.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Darcy water Grave sports talk hosters with me, Hello.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Darce, never Blizzy Ellen.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Now, what's what is this? Is there a problem with
the pitch? Are they trying to dig the pitch for us?
Are they trying to are they trying to skew the
prep pitch? What's going on?

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Slip of the tongue there?

Speaker 3 (00:16):
What happened when England was over there and beat them
in the first Test a couple of years ago in
a five Test series? The next four wickets were diabolical.
They really didn't take it very well.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, so.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
It's only been played on twice before and the first
time they played on it they were beaten by three
hundred and thirty three runs.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
The second time they played on.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
It they won comfortably.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
And who scored a double century? Their rock star with
the I've just completely forgotten his name?

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Are you?

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Are you asking me to star in the Indian Square?
Who did you say? So?

Speaker 3 (00:57):
What they're going to do now is they believe it's
going to be low and slow, and it's rolled and flat,
and it's made of black mud, so it's going to
be difficult to score off and they're going to load
their side up with spinners.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
But last time. In that very first Test match, the
test umpire said.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Look, this is not fit for purpose. This is the
most awful It was over in three days.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
How do you because apparently what they're doing there is
they're trying to prepare the pitch so that our fast
bowlers don't actually work that well there, how do you
do that? What do you do to the pitch?

Speaker 2 (01:29):
You didn't it so it doesn't have the same.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Do you have I come out with like road rollers
or something.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Well, they can roll as flat as they want. They
can make it more dull for the bounce. The problem
here is trying to fight what we've gotten the paste department.
Wellow rourk he's extraordinarily tall. Well, it's a home test.
That's what happens.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
You prepare, We do this kind of stuff for gold.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
There. What we do is we wait till we get
a subcontinental team, right tests, we send them to the
need it and they freeze.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
To death after the second day. It's cruel, but that's
what it's all about. It's the home advantage. But will
I rock?

Speaker 3 (02:07):
It's got such a ridiculous high arch. He's so tall,
the steeples. It comes down from a great deal of height.
If anyone's going to extrain anything from the deck, it's
going to be him. But remember last time, they think,
win the toss this time and you'll have control of
the match, which is what happened last time. The Indians
won the toss and they have any control and they
fell apart. And I suspect, and I might be horribly

(02:29):
wrong here, that the pressure on board the Indians to
win this Test series so they can establish a position
in the World Test Championship Final, which they should do
with the rage of the players and the rage of
the crowds and the expectations coming at anything in that situation,
if you approach anything with anger, doesn't work out well.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
No, which is good to add our advantage again.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
And I think the new Centalanders sit back, super calm,
going it's on you guys.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Know what have you got? I'm really looking forward to.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
I'm fascinated by this what's going on with rugby. So
the former RA boss a chair up this says that
they should be poaching talent from NRL, which actually is
not a bad idea, right because the NRL plays that
game is fast, man.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
It is good. We've had issues before though with NRL
players that have come across. Some have been very successful,
some have not been successful at all. The general callers
sought your grassroots out, start building rugby players from the
bottom up, and you should be okay. But they've been
working on that for twenty years. And so you look

(03:32):
at the success stories outside of his social media presence.
Israel Flower huge success story. It's fantastic.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
You go back a few years Rogers came out of
rugby league, he was fantastic. Games changed a wee bit
now when All Sailor came out of a rugby league,
fantastic rugby player over here. We've had Sonny Bill Williams
who transferred particularly well Rods to Vasishik didn't he got
to the All Blacks. But I wonder if that's the
case of all that good or insit. I felt they
had to because they they've got him.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Over here, they might be gross down fair. I think
they put him in the wrong position.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
Benji Marshall came over then coach of the bluest him
play in the NPC.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
So when he turned up to play for.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
The Blues and Super Rugby proper, he had no idea
what he was doing that it was an absolute disaster.
They used to call him Benchie Marshall because he's been
all this time on.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
The bench, so it is fraught.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
But Joseph Ali is the new guy and cost him
about five million bucks. But they think the effect that
he's going to have on the game in Australia is huge.
He's theorizing and he can hear more because I've spoken
with Hamos mclenan. He'll be on the show up after
seven tonight. Is that someone like Cleary has done everything
he can in rugby league. There's a World Cup in

(04:41):
Australia and last time and he could be the savior.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Oh here's a text for us, get a grip. Poaching
league players is like getting drafts players to play chess.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
But the thing some of them have been really, really successful.
You can't deny that some of them been out and
out failure. I don't know, it's still a similar shape ball.
It's them on the game. And thank you very much
for your time.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Darcy water Grave. We'll be back at seven for Sports
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