Tag: Conflict

An Information Night — Weaponised

Part 34 of 70 — Original Chapter: Chapter 10: A Narrow Escape from Football Oblivion

This article forms part of the serialised republication of Panthers, Passion & Politics – The Roger Cowan Years.

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Two weeks later, Penrith Council joined the fight. A resolution was passed at a council meeting to send a letter to Panthers urging them to stand alone. Several councillors spoke in support of the motion, emphasising both the importance of the football team to Penrith’s identity and the economic value it brought to the city. One councillor suggested that the council ‘should let the NRL know where we are and urge Panthers to stand firm’.1

Council’s stance created a whole new dynamic. Two Panthers directors had council links. One, John Bateman, was already on council and it was common knowledge that he had his eye on the mayoral seat for the following year. His ally, Greg Evans had been a councillor in the early 90s, and was campaigning to be re-elected in the next council election.

Throughout most of the Penrith community, the issue sparked passion and emotion, and massive amounts of rhetoric, but there seemed to be little understanding or acceptance of the reality of the situation.

Ron Mulock, a former deputy premier of NSW and Penrith mayor, had been the club patron since its early days. He passionately opposed even the thought of a merger with any other team. He is quoted many times as saying he ‘would rather die on his sword’, than merge.

Through the club’s early days, Cowan had enjoyed a friendly relationship with Mulock. They were joint architects of the project to establish Penrith’s Police Citizens Boys’ Club as a joint venture between the council and the club. It was the first boys’ club of its kind in Australia to be built without the need for public fund-raising.

Board chairman Barry Walsh had also been a longtime friend of Mulock. When the Parramatta merger became an issue, this all changed. Walsh speaks of a day when Mulock arrived at his house, very upset and behaving in a rude and aggressive manner. It was a side to his character that Walsh had not seen. It was also a shock to Walsh’s wife who had always been a staunch Mulock supporter.

Walsh tried to explain the situation to Mulock. He understood the patron’s concerns, and wanted to reassure him. He suggested that if he would attend a board meeting, he would see for himself that the directors had no intention whatsoever of approving a merger. Mulock refused the invitation.

The Board decided to hold a public meeting to inform the members – and the team’s fans and supporters exactly what was going on. Its purpose was not to seek a decision, but to explain the situation facing the club and answer questions from members and supporters.

Cowan was to address the meeting held on 7 September 1998, but was quite unprepared for what happened.

I was aware of the controversy out in the community. We had just come through the whole Super League saga and people were very emotional about any possibility of merging with another club. But there was so much misinformation flying around. The board had agreed that our members and supporters should be given a factual analysis of the situation.

I decided to test my address on about eight of our managers. I was going to speak from notes to make sure that the message would not change on the night, no matter what. I asked them to look for any possible bias in what I was saying.  I wanted to present both sides of the problem. They needed to understand that it was essential to fully investigate the situation.

If we decided to remain as a stand alone club there was, at that time, a very strong chance we would have no team in the NRL competition. If we decided to merge with another club, there would be a different set of negative results. They needed to have the full story.

I made a few changes on the advice of the management team, but we were confident that the message was objective and honest.

Rather than reducing uncertainty, the meeting fundamentally changed the course of the debate.

Cowan has described the meeting as an ambush. He says he and the board executive were completely caught by surprise.  After Cowan addressed the meeting, Ron Mulock took the podium. Cowan says it was a moment he will never forget.

He was shouting and ranting about lies and corruption and saying all sorts of crazy stuff, and it seemed to be mostly aimed at me. He attacked four members of the board, carrying on that they had 80 years experience between them. He was even adding up their ages. The tirade went on and on. He made the “rather die on my sword” comment, and told the meeting that the league would never drop Penrith from the competition. Souths used the same questionable rationale and were dropped from the competition a few months later.

This was a public forum, and Cowan says he could not believe Mulock’s extraordinary behavior.

Later, I wondered about the reasons for the personal attacks. He was speaking as if he had come prepared for a debate, and it sounded as if he believed that I would be advocating a merger, and that I would be supported by some directors. If this really was the case, he had been badly misled.

This was the most troubling aspect of the whole thing. The Board had voted unanimously against any merger, but he was acting as if he had been told something very different.

His behaviour on that night was just another piece of a jigsaw puzzle.

There was another strange aspect to this forum.

John Bateman, responding to written questions sent in late 2006, said that the decision by members at the 7 September meeting was the reason he had continued his ‘stand alone’ stance.2

But this was not a proper members’ meeting.

A meeting of members for the purpose of making decisions would have required notices being mailed to all members three weeks in advance. This was nothing more than an information forum. Non-members were allowed to attend. Less than 350 people attended. There was no vote taken.

At the meeting the Five took the opportunity to declare their determination to stand alone despite a few weeks earlier having agreed to look at all options.

The following night’s board meeting virtually ensured there would be no further discussion on the subject. The continuing rationale for such a closed stance was that the members had spoken and that was what the members wanted. The fact is that many thousands of members would not even have been aware the meeting was held. The Board had taken no measure of members’ views.
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  1. The position adopted by the Council was very interesting. Since at least 1994, research had been regularly done and the exposure and value the Penrith Rugby League team brought to the local community was an integral part of that research. Yet until this point the Council had failed to acknowledge that value in any way. In fact, it often seemed that certain councillors and council officers resented the thought that it was Panthers bringing Penrith growing visibility.
    ↩︎
  2. This belief was express in correspondence from John Bateman to Jennie Bentley dated 7th Januray 2007. On tis issue Bateman says:
    … it was my view that the members “had spoken” on 7 September 1998 and I was happy to uphold their direction to
    the board to “stand alone”    . ↩︎

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Commentary and Contributions

A Good Story Trumps Truth

Part 33 of 70 — Original Chapter: Chapter 10: A Narrow Escape from Football Oblivion

This article forms part of the serialised republication of Panthers, Passion & Politics – The Roger Cowan Years.

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As discussions quietly continued between Penrith and Parramatta, a very different story was beginning to circulate publicly.

It was not long after the two clubs began their talks that the media speculation began. Cowan says there was a great deal of misinformation, with many comments proving to be wide of the mark.

On one occasion someone announced on Ray Hadley’s rugby league radio show that the merger of Penrith and Parramatta was a ‘done deal’. There was no truth in that statement, but it stirred up a hornet’s nest in Penrith. People believed if they heard it on the Hadley program it must be true.

Denis Fitzgerald bears this out. ‘It was never a done deal,’ he says. ‘Far from it.’

As the old media adage goes, “don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.” In this case, rumour was rapidly overtaking reality.

Rumours flew that Cowan had already made a secret agreement with Parramatta. The rumours were soon repeated by others, including some who understood how football clubs operated and should have appreciated that no chief executive could make such a decision alone.

Perhaps the most surprising assumption was that I could somehow make such a decision on my own. Businesses simply do not operate that way. The board of directors has total power over decisions that affect the members they represent.

Mick Kelly, who writes for the Western Weekender, still pushes the story that I was the one who had to be defeated to avoid the merger.1 While the agendas of some people would later become obvious, Kelly’s rigid stance is still difficult to understand. He has some experience in the way clubs work, so he must have known that what he was saying was untrue. At the time of merger discussions, he was well aware of the alliance of five directors. This was the group who would later claim to be the Footy Five and it included the owner of the newspaper that employed him. They held a majority of five of the nine votes, so nothing could happen that they did not support. Kelly had to know that.

The truth is, they only needed four votes to stop a merger.

There is one little known fact about this episode. Cowan had suggested a further safeguard — instead of a decision by simple majority, the votes of at least six directors should be required for  a decision in favour of merging with another club. Of course, the alliance of five could have used its majority to strengthen this even further had they deemed it necessary — they could have made a unanimous vote as the safeguard.

It was a practical safeguard that made it even less plausible that a merger could occur without overwhelming Board support.

Kelly’s ‘rigid stance’ on the issue continues to this day. During the course of the research for this book, the author was told by a couple of people that he [Kelly] had some important evidence to present that would prove that Cowan wanted a merger with Parramatta. Apparently, the evidence is in the form of a taped interview in which the Panthers CEO had said he thought that a merger with Parramatta was the way to go.

Questioned on this point, Cowan says depending on the time of the interview, and the circumstances — and of course the context — it is very possible.

They were some very desperate moments during those years. I have said all along that a merger was preferable to seeing Panthers disappear from the rugby league scene altogether. I never stepped back from that belief. I could not understand the opposing belief that it would be better to “die on our swords”. When the board would not even discuss such an important issue, it made me very suspicious that something strange was going on behind the scenes.

Panthers group chairman Barry Walsh calls the merger story a ‘storm in a teacup’, because — as far as he and the rest of the Board was concerned — it was never going to happen. There was no need for the high drama and the media beat-ups. Attempts to investigate the options carefully, maintain a low profile and not raise controversy in the community were being undermined by media speculation that had no foundation in fact.

In July, the Western Weekender, a local newspaper owned by director Greg Evans, ran a story on its front page advocating a ‘stand alone’ position for the Club. On 2 August, the story broke in the Sunday Telegraph. It said that a merger between the two clubs was ‘set to become reality next year’. It said the team would be called the Parramatta Panthers, and would play in blue and gold, the Parramatta colours. The story featured quotes from Denis Fitzgerald, but none from Roger Cowan, or indeed anyone from the Panthers club. But it was enough to set things in motion in the city of Penrith
.

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  1. Mick Kelly no longer writes for the Western Weekender. like many of the protagonists in this chapter of the Panthers story he undoubdtedly maintains his view. ↩︎

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Commentary and Contributions

Survival Becomes a Numbers Game — The NRL Criteria

Editors Note: The tables reproduced in this article are based on Panthers’ internal working papers prepared during 1998 and 1999. They were management documents used to estimate the club’s position under the NRL Selection Criteria and were never intended for publication. While some financial measures necessarily relied on informed estimates, they provide a rare insight into the information available to Panthers’ leadership as critical decisions were being made.

The settlement that ended the Super League war did not guarantee the survival of every club. In fact, it guaranteed the demise of some teams.

Twenty-two teams competed in the 1997 Season — the split competitions season — twelve played in the Australian Rugby League and ten in Super League.

Before the new National Rugby League competition began in 1998, the South Queensland Crushers and the Hunter Mariners were wound up, leaving twenty clubs to compete in the frist season of a unified competition.

The unity was conditional.

The NRL would operate with twenty clubs during 1998 and 1999, but from the 2000 season the competition would be reduced to just fourteen. The peace agreement had ended one conflict while immediately beginning another — a contest for survival.

To determine which clubs would be admitted to the new fourteen-team competition, the NRL introduced a formal assessment process known simply as the Criteria. (Download PDF: Admission Criteria National Rugby League Competition )

The NRL described the Criteria as a “fair and reasonable” method of selecting the clubs that would comprise the future competition. They consisted of three separate components.

The Basic Criteria required clubs to demonstrate that they met, or had plans to meet, minimum standards relating to playing facilities, administration, solvency and development.

The Qualifying Criteria examined financial capacity, including minimum revenue requirements of $8 million together with five-year business plans demonstrating the ability to sustain those revenues.

It was the third component — the Selection Criteria — that attracted the greatest attention from Panthers and most other clubs.

Selection points were awarded across six categories:

  • Home crowd numbers
  • Away crowd numbers
  • Competition’s points
  • Home game receipts
  • Sponsorship and other income
  • Profitability

Not every club was required to compete under these Selection Criteria.

Brisbane, Newcastle and Auckland were given exemption, leaving seventeen clubs competing for the remaining eleven places.

There were two further provisos that influenced the process.

Firstly, any club created through the merger of two or more existing clubs would also receive automatic admission to the fourteen-team competition. The deadline for merger submissions was 31 July 1999 — a date that becomes critically important later in this story.

Secondly, there was to be a minimum of six Sydney-based clubs. Of the seventeen clubs still subject to the Selection Criteria, twelve were Sydney clubs. While there was no predetermined list of clubs to disappear, it was obvious that the greatest competition for survival would occur within Sydney.

After studying the Selection Criteria, Panthers pursued two parallel strategies.

The first was to prepare submissions challenging aspects of the Criteria that the club believed were flawed or unfair.

The second was to construct an internal model to estimate where Panthers ranked against the other clubs.

The Modelling

Of the six measured categories, three could be obtained directly from publicly available information – home crowds, away crowds and competition points. A fourth category, home gate receipts, could be estimated with reasonable confidence because it was closely related to attendance figures. The remaining two categories – sponsorship and other income, and profitability – required informed estimates based on the information available.

Points were then allocated according to each club’s ranking in every category, with bonus points applying in some areas.

Although the NRL never published progressive rankings, Panthers developed its own working model using the published Selection Criteria and the best information available at the time.

The following table is reproduced from a report for Panthers management explaining the modelling and its results — it shows the estimated rankings at the end of Season 1998. (Download PDF: Working Paper on NRL Selection Criteria – this is the Panthers working paper produced at the end of Season 1998)

Panthers internal estimate of club criteria rankings at the end of Season 1998

The purpose of the modelling was not to predict the future with certainty. It was more to provide information that might guide decision-making and strategy development leading into the final declaration of the 2000 NRL line-up … the merger deadline of 31 July, 1998 was another critical point in the calendar for which this information could prove useful.

Where did Panthers appear to rank? What categories could Panthers take action to improve? Could those areas realistically be improved?

If no potential improvement could be seen or planned, what strategic options needed to be examined before the 31 July 1999 merger deadline expired?

Despite relying on estimated figures in three categories, the analysis painted a concerning picture.

Panthers appeared to be ranked fifteenth — just below the 14-team cut-off. Significantly significantly the team hold fourteenth position, Balmain, was estimated to be around thirty points ahead. Even allowing for some estimation error, the modelling suggested that Penrith faced the genuine threat of being axed from the top rugby league competition.

The calculations did not stop there.

By the beginning of the 1999 season, the Gold Coast Chargers and Adelaide Rams had left the competition, while St George and Illawarra had merged to form the St George Illawarra Dragons.

Those changes did little to improve Penrith’s position.

Both the folded clubs had been ranked below Panthers, while the St George–Illawarra merger simply created another club guaranteed admission under the merger provisions.

So, the 1999 season began with seventeen clubs competing, four of them already guaranteed a place in the 2000 competition. That left thirteen clubs — nine from Sydney — competing for the remaining ten places.

The following table shows the standings as at Monday 26 July 1999 — after Round 21 of Season 1999 — five days before the merger submissions deadline.

Panthers internal estimate of club rankings after Round 21, 1999 Season (26th July 1999)

At this late stage of the process the modelling still had Penrith in fifteenth position.

However, the gap to fourteenth (Balmain) had been narrowed — from 30 points to 4.6 points. And Norths fortunes had them dropping from eleventh position to thirteenth, a reachable (though difficult) 12.75 points ahead of Penrith.

There were still five rounds of the season to be completed.

BUT …

The day after this table was distributed to Panthers management, Balmain and Western Suburbs announced a joint venture — the Wests Tigers were born and another place was taken.

To be sure, throughout 1998 and 1999 there was speculation about potential mergers, so this wasn’t a surprise. So, Penrith now had to close a gap of 12.75 points on North Sydney — given their slide and Penrith’s gathering momentum, there was hope.

However, no internal analysis could predict the final outcome. Some financial measures remained estimates and therefore likely had errors, more mergers could change the landscape and the NRL still retained discretion in applying the Criteria.

Nevertheless, the modelling consistently pointed to the same conclusion.

The Penrith Panthers were vulnerable.

The significance of the Panthers modelling and their companion working documents is not with their accuracy.

Their importance is that they demonstrate commitment by Panthers management to ensuring information was available to maintain their evidence-based approach to decision-making. It was not reacting to to rumours or speculation despite the fact that some influential people were.

Panthers had constructed a detailed assessment of its position using the published Selection Criteria and the best information available at the time. No other club had taken this approach.

That assessment suggested Panthers was outside the projected fourteen-team competition.

Whether the analysis ultimately proved right or wrong is almost secondary.

It explains why management believed the threat was real, why alternative strategies had to be considered before the merger deadline expired, and why simply waiting for the NRL’s final decision was never regarded as a responsible option.

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Counting Crowds to Chase Survival

When the Super League war finally ended, it was conditional.

Twenty clubs would compete in the National Rugby League during 1998 and 1999 before the competition contracted to just fourteen teams for the 2000 season. Which clubs survived would not be determined by tradition, supporter loyalty or even on-field performance.

There was an attempt to determine the clubs that would compete from Season 2000 onwards by more objective means. So, a detailed set of selection criteria was created to decide who’d be eliminated.

Although Panthers’ management was pleased the NRL had tried to apply some science to the process, there was great concern that it was compromised right from the start.

The criteria relied upon historical information that could not easily be audited. For example, attendance figures formed an important part of the assessment, yet clubs reported their own crowds and there appeared to be no independent verification.

In fact, Panthers was encouraged, by the game’s governing body during Season 1997, to “boost” the attendances. They resisted but believed the practice was widespread.

Panthers repeatedly challenged aspects of the criteria, arguing that several measures lacked transparency. Panthers raised its concerns privately and directly with the NRL rather than through the media.

The attitude within Panthers was to formally advise the authorities of the Club’s concerns about serious flaws in the criteria, alerting them that they could easily be challenged. The internal emphasis on evidence, analysis and measurement was applied to this problem — and although there was no solution in sight, the management and Board at least had a solid understanding of the challenges.

That philosophy gave birth to one of the more unusual projects undertaken during the fight for survival.

A War of Words

The immediate catalyst arrived in early May 1998.

Sydney City (The Roosters) chairman Nick Politis publicly criticised Penrith — labelling the Panthers, and Canterbury, “basket cases”. The restrained approach consciously adopted by Cowan had been interpreted as weakness.

Not wanting to exchange insults in the public arena, a decision was made to present evidence that would serve as a “return shot” at the Roosters while alerting Panthers fans that the Club’s public silence did not mean they were sitting on their hands.

Importantly, it also would send a message to the NRL, the other clubs and the general public about the fragility of the measures that were being used to cull clubs.

This was an opportunity for Cowan and the Panthers to go public with evidence demonstrating one of the significant flaws in the criteria.

Cameras Instead of Opinions

The Roosters were scheduled to play the Auckland Warriors at the Sydney Football Stadium on Saturday 2 May. Panthers managemtn team knew the crowd would be relatively small and also had a strong suspicion that their official crowd would be inflated.

So, photographer Neil Billington was dispatched to the Sydney Football Stadium with the task of photographing every section of the stadium. Neil’s media accreditation allowed him to take the photos from the field area and his instruction was to take the photos 5 minutes into the second half when attendees would have returned to their seats.

The resulting enlarged photographs allowed individual seating bays to be examined and the spectators counted manually. The counting was done by members of the Panthers management and marketing teams — sometimes with magnifying glasses deployed. Each count was verified against the others.

The conclusion was clear, the official attendance announced by the Roosters significantly overstated the number of spectators actually present.

The photographs became the basis of a dramatic Daily Telegraph back-page story under the headline “Where Are They?”, accompanied by enlarged photographs of the stadium and detailed comparisons between the official crowd and Panthers’ own calculations.

Daily Telegraph — click image to read article. The article continues here.

What began as an off-the-cuff comment aimed at belittling the Penrith Panthers, became a public debate about the integrity of the selection criteria.

The Project Expands

Encouraged by the clarity of the photographic evidence, Panthers broadened the exercise.

Contrary to later recollections that suggested almost every match was photographed, the research concentrated on two or three Sydney-based games each round, particularly those involving clubs competing with Penrith for the final places under the criteria. The process was painstaking. Every photograph had to be examined manually and individual spectators counted section by section.

The objective was not to embarrass rival clubs.

It was to determine whether attendance figures—the very figures helping decide which clubs lived and which disappeared—were reliable.

According to Roger Cowan, the accumulated material may eventually have supported a legal challenge if Panthers found themselves excluded from the competition. He never regarded it as a particularly attractive strategy, but believed the circumstances justified examining every possible option.

Roger and Nick Declare Peace

Within days, the public dispute subsided.

Correspondence between Roger Cowan and Nick Politis helped calm tensions, and both clubs publicly agreed to move on. There was nothing personal about the exchange — both men were doing what they saw as necessary for their clubs.

The underlying issue, however, remained unresolved.

Whether official attendance figures accurately reflected the crowds attending NRL matches was never independently tested.

Daily Telegraph 8 May 1998 — click image to read.

Looking Back

With the benefit of hindsight, the crowd-counting exercise could appear excessive.

Yet it reflected the reality confronting Panthers during 1998.

Management believed the club was sitting outside the fourteen places destined for Season 2000. Every point on the criteria mattered. Every category was scrutinised. While substantial resources were invested in increasing Panthers’ own crowds and commercial performance, management also continued examining the assumptions upon which the criteria rested. At the same time the club quietly but substantially increased the budget for marketing initiatives designed to improve attendances and strengthen its own position.

Ironically, the photographs were never called upon.

When South Sydney later challenged its exclusion from the competition, Panthers’ collection of crowd photographs was not requested. Whether they would ever have carried legal weight remains unknown.

Perhaps that is not their greatest significance.

The Panthers / Roosters “Where Are They” conflict may have been a dispute over attendance figures, but it was evidence of something more important — a management team, led by Roger Cowan, determined and prepared to investigate every possible avenue in the fight to preserve first-grade rugby league in Penrith.

Postscript

Nick Politis added a postscript to the letter he sent Roger Cowan. It said:

I hope all this controversy between our clubs results in a great crowd for you when the Roosters visit the Panthers in Round 18 (July 10-12)!

The attendance at Penrith Stadium for the Rooster’s game was 11,156—around 20 per cent higher than the club’s average home crowd for the 1998 season. Whether the controversy contributed is impossible to know, but the irony was sweet.

Final Note: The fate of the hundreds upon hundreds of photograph prints from those 1998 games? It is said they were burned.

Related Topics

Related Themes

Conflict · Governance · Financial Management

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The Criteria

Part 30 of 70 — Original Chapter: Chapter 10: A Narrow Escape from Football Oblivion

This article forms part of the serialised republication of Panthers, Passion & Politics – The Roger Cowan Years.

Start · Reader’s Guide · All Parts

The existence of two rival competitions created enormous upheaval throughout rugby league. Traditional club rivalries remained, but supporters were now divided between the Australian Rugby League and Super League. Both sides eventually recognised that the conflict was causing immeasurable damage to the game. While rugby league fought its civil war, AFL, rugby union and soccer continued strengthening their positions in New South Wales and Queensland.

Eventually, both organisations accepted that the conflict could not continue. A peace process began and, after lengthy negotiations, agreement was reached. Super League had lasted just one season.

In 1998 and 1999 twenty teams played in the competition, because newly created Super League teams were accommodated with longer established clubs. Everyone agreed that twenty teams were far too many.

Roger Cowan was directly involved in the peace process. For about 12 months before the parties came to terms, he attended meetings with News Limited’s Ian Frykberg, along with representatives of the other two Sydney Super League clubs, trying to come up with a solution.

It was a slow process. Each side knew what they wanted, but they were poles apart. The ARL wanted all its clubs to be included in any national competition. Super League was advocating a limit of twelve teams. Their position was that fewer teams would mean a much better standard of competition. On a financial level, they believed that too many Sydney teams would make it difficult for clubs to gain the necessary support from sponsors and fans to be successful.

In 1997, a compromise was reached. A set of criteria was established, which would be followed to cut teams down to 14 by 2000. According to Cowan, this path was set in concrete. His close involvement in Super League had given him an opportunity to get to know the people who had driven the concept. The fixity of the ceiling has been borne out by a number of people, including NRL CEO David Gallop.1

The criteria system was sold as the fairest way of deciding which clubs would survive. The clubs would be awarded points, based on things such as crowds at both their home and away games, competition points over the previous five years and actual gate receipt dollars from home games. They would also be judged on sponsorship and other income, and on their overall profitability. Longevity, tradition and emotion just did not come into it. Nor did junior league, which was one of Penrith’s strengths.

Despite repeated objections, Panthers was unable to secure any significant change to the criteria.They continued to fight against the system, believing it was biased on several levels. They sent submissions to the NRL claiming that because some of the criteria were retrospective, the figures were not auditable. It also became obvious that some clubs were fudging their crowd numbers to help boost their chances.

A criticism of Penrith by the chairman of the Easts club was aired in the media, and sparked a Panther strategy to photograph the crowds at other grounds. The first photographs were taken at Easts’ next home game after the criticism was published. The images allowed the crowd to be easily counted – there were less than 3,000 in the ground. Easts claimed a crowd of more than 5,000.

The clarity of the photographs convinced the club to expand the project and photograph the crowds at nearly every game at Sydney venues2 — but especially at the games played by clubs vying for the bottom few spots under the criteria. There was convincing evidence that most clubs were falsifying crowd numbers. Cowan says the figures may have been useful in mounting some kind of last ditch stand on the grounds that the selection criteria would not stand up in court. He says it was a rather negative strategy, with little chance of success, but they were desperate times.

The Panthers’ crowd-counting exercise became one of the more unusual episodes of the fight for survival. Read more Beyond the Book — Counting Crowds to Chase Survival.

In parallel with the photo campaign, the club spent around half a million dollars to market the game to boost its profile and its crowds.3

It was a surprise to Panthers’ management team that South Sydney never called on those photographs during their efforts to be readmitted to the competition. Their legal advisors could evidently see no value and perhaps indicating that it would have been an unsuccessful strategy for Panthers to pursue. No one knows for sure – it was never tested – but it is a fact that Souths eventually lost their case in court.

Penrith had twelve months to compete for points. Two clubs – the Hunter Mariners and the South Queensland
Crushers – had already dipped out, leaving 18 teams vying for 14 places. 

Management’s concern was not based on instinct or pessimism. Week after week, the numbers continued pointing in the same direction.

Tracking Panthers’ position against the selection criteria became the responsibility of marketing manager Max Cowan, whose background included a major in Mathematical Statistics.

Throughout the process, Panthers’ management was surprised by comments from some clubs suggesting they neither understood the criteria nor knew where they stood. It was an issue given high priority in management strategies at Panthers. Every week the club compared its situation with the relative positions of the clubs ranking lowest on the criteria.

Max Cowan remembers:

We were very aware of the commitment and determination to have a fourteen-team competition. Having been right there through the conciliation process, I knew there was absolutely no room for complacency.

Some Clubs had already announced mergers, but at Penrith it was not a word anyone wanted to mention. We also knew that any club considering a merger with us would start negotiation with an advantage because it was obvious where we stood in the criteria ladder. As a management team, we had to look for options. It would be a disaster if we sat on our hands until a decision to cut Panthers was announced. By that time it would be too late to look for a fall-back position.

Part of the reason for our low place in the criteria was the very low attendances at our home games. We had lost our major sponsor when we went into Super League and had been unable to find a replacement. So immediately we were in trouble in two of six categories.Part of the reason for our low place in the criteria was the very low attendances at our home games. We had lost our major sponsor when we went into Super League and had been unable to find a replacement. So immediately we were in trouble in two of six categories.

It was obvious to management that we were running a very poor sixteenth in a race where only fourteen would be selected.  We had to move up two places or have no team in the competition for the following year.  We only had one year to do it. Realistically we knew we would need a miracle. It would be impossible to achieve.

At the very last minute, and in a most unexpected way, we would get our miracle!

Continue Reading: The Criteria — When Survival Became a Numbers Game examines the NRL Selection Criteria and the internal working papers Panthers developed to estimate the club’s position in the race for admission to the fourteen-team competition.

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  1. Inside Panthers there were always processes engaged to inform decision-making. While “gut-feel” was respected it could only ever be part of a more rational approach. Management submissions to the Board were always anchored by by evidence gathered and analysed — especially where decisions had to made in an environmentt of uncertainty. This was probably never more evident than when it came to determining what was happening, and what could or should happen in Rugby League.
    ↩︎
  2. “Nearly every game” is not quite right — perhaps nearly every game in Sydney would be more accurate. We did conduct this research at 2-3 games each round. It was a nightmare to “count the crowd”, if only we had good scanning capability back then. Anyway, we did enough to understand exactly how much Sydney clubs were inflating their attendances – and it may surprise that the Roosters were not the biggest offenders.
    ↩︎
  3. The spend mentioned here was not publicised — in fact, it was known only to a few people — and it is another strong piece of evidence that Roger Cowan was leading a team making every effort to maintain Penrith Panthers as a stand-alone team. This effort did not diminish the responsibility to keep examining all possible outcomes. ↩︎

← Part 29 · All Parts · Part 31→

Commentary and Contributions

Super League — When Panthers Faced the Community

Leaving the ARL and signing with Super League was one of the most difficult decisions in the Club’s history. It was difficult for the Board, Cowan, the management team, the players, and the staff of both the football and licensed clubs.

It was also difficult for the members, fans and the local community. The extreme reaction of some individuals reflected the depth of feeling that existed within parts of the Panthers community. Many saw the decision as a betrayal driven by greed.

The administration building of the Club had faeces smeared across the glass entry, Roger Cowan was sent an envelope filled with nail clippings, and at the next Penrith Panthers home game fans displayed a sign that read “Betrayed”.

More sober reactions included critical letters and phone calls to the club and some staff resigned in protest. A Penrith Press telephone poll also reported overwhelming opposition, with around 90% of respondents opposing the decision.

Cowan’s response to the divisive environment was to schedule a forum in which the reasoning behind Panthers’ decision would be presented to club members and fans who could then seek answers to any questions they may have.

The meeting took place in Reactor 1 — the very popular nightclub downstairs in Panthers World of Entertainment — on 28th May 1995.

It was a Sunday morning. It was game day — the Panthers were scheduled to play the Gold Coast at Penrith Stadium. Reactor was a very dark, enclosed area – large enough to comfortably hold over 500 people. Only a few hours earlier, more than 500 people had probably filled the room. The air and even the carpet still carried the unmistakable signs of a busy Saturday night.

Several hundred people attended to hear why the Board had taken Panthers into Super League after previously declaring its loyalty to the ARL. It was tense, you could feel the anger about the decision and anger that members were not consulted.

Penrith Press Back Page 26 May 1995 – click image to read articles

As I write this, I’m reminded of the Panthers song Go the Mighty Panthers. Its opening line is:

Tension’s running high, it shows on nevery face.

While those attending were overwhelmingly against the Super League decision, the opposition was emotional but not hostile … and there were pockets of support for the Club’s move. The presence of some players perhaps took the edge off the sentiment and those present listened intently to Cowan’s explanation of the Club’s position.

The final word came from Club Captain, John Cartwright who spoke of his own doubts about the move, doubts persisting up until the meeting which had finally convinced him he’d made the right decision and so had the club.

Even the supporters who had displayed the “Betrayed” banner left expressing support for the Club’s position.

The forum did not eliminate disagreement, but it appears to have reduced some of the anger by allowing members to hear directly from those responsible for the decision.

Penrith Press 30 May 1995 — click image to read article

It would, however, be wrong to suggest that the community’s opposition had completely turned to support. Some supporters maintained a deep sense of betrayal by Panthers’ decision, others, after reflecting on the events, reached a different conclusion. One letter published in the Penrith Press in early 1996 acknowledged discomfort with the way Super League had unfolded, yet concluded that Panthers’ administrators had acted out of concern for the club’s future rather than self-interest. Steve Wharton’s letter was published in the Penrith Press on 12 March 1996, in part he said:

I am still not comfortable with what happened. But through it all I saw only concern for what was best for Panthers, when it came to the efforts of our team and administrators.

Steve Wharton’s letter is not evidence that community opinion had swung decisively behind the Board. Rather, it is a reminder that community opinion was more varied and nuanced than later accounts sometimes suggest.

Continue Exploring the Super League Story

These companion Historical Context articles examine different aspects of Panthers’ decision to join Super League:

  • The Panthers Move — How the Penrith Panthers came to join the new competition.
  • The Real Money Fight — The corporate battle that lay behind the Super League War.
  • When Panthers Faced the Community — How Panthers’ decision affected its members, supporters and the wider Penrith community.

Related Topics

Related Themes

Football Club · Conflict · Governance · Financial

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Readers who hold recollections, documents, or material relevant to this history are welcome to contribute via the Commentary & Contributions page.

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Super League — The Real Money Fight

For most rugby league supporters, the Super League War is remembered as a bitter struggle between the Australian Rugby League and Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited.

That description is accurate—but it tells only part of the story.

Looking back three decades later, it is easy to view the conflict simply as a battle over the control of rugby league. At the time, however, respected financial journalist Robert Gottliebsen argued that the game itself was not the real prize. In an article published in the Australian Financial Review in April 1996, he described Super League as just one front in a much larger corporate struggle involving Australia’s emerging pay television industry, the nation’s two largest telecommunications companies, and two of its most powerful media empires.

In Gottliebsen’s view, rugby league had become one of the weapons in “the real money fight.”

A Bigger Vision

The origins of that conflict can be traced back several years before the first Super League contracts were signed.

Around 1992, Rupert Murdoch and Frank Blount, the Managing Director of Telstra, began discussing the enormous potential of cable and satellite technology. Their vision extended well beyond television. They believed that broadband networks would eventually carry not only entertainment but also telephone services, banking, retailing, medical services, gambling and countless other forms of communication.

To pursue that vision, Murdoch suggested bringing Kerry Packer into the venture. The proposal became known as the PMT consortium—Packer, Murdoch and Telecom.

For a brief period, Australia’s two most influential media families appeared to be working towards a common future.

It did not last.

The Alliance Breaks Apart

As Australia’s telecommunications industry prepared for competition, Optus recognised the strategic value of Kerry Packer’s media interests and encouraged him to align with its own plans.

Murdoch, meanwhile, ultimately partnered with Telstra.

What had begun as a shared vision quickly evolved into competing alliances.

Telstra and Murdoch established Foxtel.

Optus assembled its own powerful consortium, supported by Kerry Packer and eventually the Seven Network.

Suddenly, the emerging pay television market had become a battleground between rival telecommunications companies, rival media organisations and rival strategic visions for Australia’s communications future.

Billions of dollars were now at stake.

Gottliebsen reported that Telstra’s own internal modelling suggested as much as $7–8 billion of corporate value could be affected depending on which side prevailed.

Why Rugby League Suddenly Mattered

Pay television needed something that could persuade Australians to subscribe.

Movies were important.

News was important.

But live sport was essential.

Existing broadcasting arrangements meant Kerry Packer’s Nine Network already held the free-to-air rights to rugby league. When Murdoch’s executives struggled to secure premium sporting content for Foxtel, creating a new national rugby league competition became a commercially attractive option.

From this perspective, Super League was far more than a football competition.

It became part of a much larger contest over subscribers, broadcasting rights, market share and ultimately the future of Australia’s communications industry.

This does not diminish the genuine rugby league issues that also existed. Questions about the game’s administration, its national expansion, club structures and commercial future were all real and important. However, Gottliebsen argued that these football issues had become intertwined with a much broader corporate struggle that most supporters could neither see nor fully appreciate while it was unfolding.

What It Meant For Penrith

None of these corporate manoeuvres were visible to most Panthers members or supporters.

They saw clubs changing sides.

Players signing confidential contracts.

Court battles.

Television cameras.

Public accusations of betrayal.

Behind those events, however, some of Australia’s largest corporations were fighting over far more than rugby league.

Understanding that broader context helps explain why events moved so quickly during 1995 and why the decisions confronting clubs became so significant.

For Penrith, the immediate question was never which media company would ultimately prevail.

Would Panthers still have a place in the highest level of rugby league when the dust finally settled?

That was the question management sought to answer in Part 29.

Continue Exploring the Super League Story

These companion Historical Context articles examine different aspects of Panthers’ decision to join Super League:

  • The Panthers Move — How the Penrith Panthers came to join the new competition.
  • When Panthers Faced the Community — How Panthers’ decision affected its members, supporters and the wider Penrith community.
  • The Real Money Fight — The corporate battle that lay behind the Super League War.

Related Topics

Related Themes

Football Club · Conflict · Governance

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Readers who hold recollections, documents, or material relevant to this history are welcome to contribute via the Commentary & Contributions page.

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Super League — The Panthers Move

Part 29 — Joining Super League begins with a deceptively simple statement:

“In May 1995 Panthers had resolved to leave the Australian Rugby League to join Super League…”

Read in isolation, it almost sounds like an ordinary administrative decision. In reality it followed months of uncertainty, strategic analysis and one of the most turbulent periods in rugby league history.

It would be easy for a reader to miss the nuance and significance behind that statement — it sounds almost as simple as resolving to change the club’s soft drink supplier.

The opening phrase is followed up with a hint that this was, in fact, a major decision and noting that Super League was a new competition established by News Limited.

Many simplify the establishment of this new competition as an attempt by Murdoch to attain the broadcast rights of rugby league for his pay television platform, Foxtel. This was true. Kerry Packer’s Consolidated Press held those rights but they were not being used — and it was commonly believed that the Packer deal did not represent the true value of the game.

It’s worth briefly doing a quick history — to take us up to that point in May 1995 when the Penrith Panthers made their resolution to join Super League.

Just over a year before Penrith’s resolution, in April 1994, John Ribot (Chief Executive Officer, Brisbane Broncos) sent Ken Cowley (Chief Executive, News Ltd) a report outlining the concept of a new structure for rugby league in Australia. This was followed up in May 1994 with discussions of the concept with some leading players.

By August 1994 News Ltd had moved well beyond an idea. It had developed an outline for an entirely new national competition. The main points of this outline were:

  • To establish an elite national competition (including New Zealand) between 12 privately owned teams. Up to 4 of these teams to be owned by News Ltd.
  • Superleague Ltd would get revenue from sponsorship, free-to-air and pay television rights, gate receipts and merchandising. New Ltd would receive a 15% management fee and the profit shared amongst the 12 clubs.
  • The 12 clubs would be:
    • 4 based in Sydney
    • 4 continuing teams — Brisbane, Canberra, Newcastle and Auckland
    • New teams in Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne

The greatest challenge was reducing eleven Sydney clubs (plus Illawarra) to four Sydney franchises. News Ltd proposed grouping clubs into sets of three and inviting them to jointly own a single Super League franchise.

For example: Wests, Parramatta, and Penrith could be grouped together and offered a franchise. Ownership would be split evenly between those clubs taking up the offer. The owner of the old club eg Penrith Rugby League Club Ltd would be entitled to 50% of its share of the new club, the other 50% would be offered directly to members.

Over the remaining months of 1994 there was considerable media speculation and News Ltd and ARFL Ltd executives held private discussions.

Following those discussions, Ken Arthurson (ARFL Ltd Chairman) and John Quayle (ARFL CEO) issued agreements to each of the 20 existing club aimed at securing their loyalty to the ARL for the 5 season starting 1995. All 20 clubs signed these agreements by November 1994.

On 6th February 1995 News Ltd presented their proposal to the ARL — offering the ARL positions on the Super League Board as well as the ongoing rights to administer various rugby league programs.

On that same day Kerry Packer addressed the 20 clubs declaring his ownership of the broadcasting rights (free-to-air and pay television) until the year 2000. Part of this address was a threat to sue any club that joined a Super League competition. A short time later in February 1995 all 20 club signed another agreement — the so-called Loyalty Agreements — reinforcing those signed 4 months earlier.

Packer’s declaration made one thing abundantly clear. The dispute was no longer simply about rugby league administration. Rugby league had become the battleground in a much larger corporate struggle over broadcasting, telecommunications and pay television. Robert Gottliebson in an Australian Financial review article in April 1996 suggested this was a battle where $7 billion dollars was at stake.

Packer’s declaration made one thing abundantly clear. The dispute was no longer simply about rugby league administration. Rugby league had become the battleground in a much larger corporate struggle over broadcasting, telecommunications and pay television. Robert Gottliebson in an Australian Financial review article in April 1996 suggested this was a battle where $7 billion dollars was at stake.

By late March 1995, after having their momentum slowed by the reaction of Packer, the ARL and the club, News Ltd resolved to press on. In their eyes they had three strategic choices as shown in the table from Super League Case Study a 2003 research paper for Victoria University written by Robert D, McDonald.

News Ltd elected to take the third approach and start a “rebel competition”.

Their attack was on two fronts:

  1. In late March, early April News Ltd launched an aggressive and clandestine campaign — a ”blitzkrieg” — to sign players and coaches for the rebel league.
  2. Legal action commenced challenging the validity of the two agreements clubs had signed in November 1994 and February 1995.

The early targets for Super League were Brisbane, Canberra, Auckland and Canterbury. When news broke that players and coaches from these four clubs had signed with Super League, there was a flurry of signing activity from both Super League and the ARL.

Neither side approached the Penrith Panthers.

Here’s how the Super League clubs fell:

29 March — Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs. Key players signed contracts. Two day later an 1st April, Bulldogs CEO Peter Moore resigned his position on the Board of the NSWRL after aligning the club with Super League.

1 April — Brisbane Broncos. This is the date the Broncos defection broke publicly.  Broncos CEO, John Ribot, left the Broncos to become CEO of Super League at around the same time.

1-2 April — Cronulla- Sutherland Sharks. The Sharks’ players were signed after playing the Western Reds in Perth on 31st March.

2 April — Auckland Warriors. The players signed on this date. Coach John Monie had signed late in March. The Board signed the club to Super League on 20th April.

2-3 April — Canberra Raiders. Following the news breaking on April Fool’s day, most of Canberra’s high profile roster signed.

Early April — Western Reds and North Queensland Cowboys.

During all this activity and publicity there were no communications, offers or invitations for teh Penrith Panthers — from either the ARL or Super League.

The management team at Panthers was very concerned by the silence and paid close attention to every piece of information that could be found about what was happening on both sides of the battle. A comprehensive critical analysis of the situation facing Panthers was undertaken — despite the fact reliable information was scant.

The analysis process was steered by Outcomes Thinking. Rather than beginning with today’s problems, Outcomes Thinking began by defining what success would look like several years into the future. (See Beyond the Book: Education by Experience.)

The highest-level outcome was simply:

“In the year 2000 Panthers is competing in the highest-level rugby league competition.”

Our first step towards survival was to ensure that at least one of the two sides were interested in having Panthers in their competition.

Super League represented the best opportunity to create that interest — among the reasons for this conclusion was that their team list, to date, only included two Sydney-based clubs, Canterbury-Bankstown and Cronulla-Sutherland.

There was also a strong belief Panthers had a compelling case that News Ltd had not yet fully appreciated — while the ARL had had many years to understand the strengths of the Penrith club.

Cowan requested a meeting with Ken Cowley and John Ribot. At that meeting he let them know Panthers hadn’t made any decisions about its future and that we’d be an important club to either Super League or the ARL. In particular, rugby league in Penrith had strong financial backing from the largest licensed club and it also ran junior rugby league with the strongest participation anywhere in the country.

The meeting achieved its immediate objective. Super League, which until then had shown no interest in Penrith, quickly reassessed the club’s strategic value. Negotiations followed and an agreement was reached within days.

That brings us back to the opening of Part 29, where the Penrith Panthers formally resolved to become the eighth club to join Super League.

Continue Exploring the Super League Story

These companion Historical Context articles examine different aspects of Panthers’ decision to join Super League:

  • The Real Money Fight — The corporate battle that lay behind the Super League War.
  • When Panthers Faced the Community — How Panthers’ decision affected its members, supporters and the wider Penrith community.
  • The Panthers Move — How the Penrith Panthers came to join the new competition.

Related Topics

Related Themes

Football Club · Conflict · Governance · Financial Management

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Joining Super League

Part 29 of 70 — Original Chapter: Chapter 10: A Narrow Escape from Football Oblivion

This article forms part of the serialised republication of Panthers, Passion & Politics – The Roger Cowan Years.

Start · Reader’s Guide · All Parts

In May 1995 Panthers had resolved to leave the Australian Rugby League to join Super League, the new competition being established by Rupert Murdoch’s multi-national corporation News Limited. It had been one of the most difficult decisions the Club had faced.1 Cowan had spent months analysing the situation with both Board and management before a consensus recommendation was finally put to the directors.

Not long before the decision was made, he was still hoping the problem would go away. Long-time Parramatta CEO, Denis Fitzgerald, remembers Cowan standing up at a CEO function at Souths Juniors, speaking passionately about ‘putting up the barriers to News Limited’.

Within a week he’d gone to Super League. I have to say I lost some degree of confidence in Roger after that particular situation.

There was no doubt that Cowan initially supported staying with the ARL and a short time later changed his position — he was nervous about the way things were shaping up and feared that Penrith might miss out completely.  

Coach Phil Gould had asked for a release from his contract with Panthers2 to go to Easts, citing the exciting things that Easts were proposing to do in rugby league. Kerry Packer was putting pressure on clubs to stay loyal to the ARL, but was not offering anything specific, and he had a contract with the ARL to protect.

There were rumours that Packer and a few clubs, including Easts and Manly, were involved in a plan to cull some clubs in order to make a stronger and more profitable competition.3 The rumours fitted with Gould’s statements when he asked for a release but there was never any real evidence to support the rumours.

But rumours often travelled faster than fact during this period — it was increasingly difficult for clubs to distinguish genuine intelligence from speculation.

Packer appeared to have the TV rights tied up for a ridiculously low price and something was in the wind. Fewer teams in the competition would give the remaining teams a bigger slice of the TV revenue. A higher standard of competition would increase the TV value.

First-hand experience had left Cowan with the suspicion that there would no hesitation in cutting clubs that were outside the clique and considered expendable. For him it was another case of risk management. The first step in risk management is to identify the risk. In this case there was a chance that both media organisations, headed by Packer and Murdoch, were both planning how to maximise the commercialisation of Rugby League.

What was the risk to Penrith?

It seemed highly likely that both organisations would want a 12-team competition. They would also want a National Competition including Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, New Zealand, Newcastle, Brisbane, even North and South Queensland.   It followed that some Sydney clubs would be dropped.   Both groups would already know which teams they wanted in an elite competition.

Neither side had shown any interest in approaching Penrith.

Considering the connections, it was impossible to think Manly or Easts would lose out. Parramatta and St George would seem to be certainties and that might leave only one spot for another Sydney club.

As it turned out, fewer teams was exactly what the Murdoch side wanted. There was never any evidence of any plans by the other side to drop Sydney teams.4 The rumours were never substantiated, but the value of the TV rights was later proved to be more than twenty times what Packer had contracted to pay.

Cowan recalls it was a difficult time.

There was no way of knowing what was happening behind the scenes and the departure of Phil Gould had built a feeling of uncertainty in my mind about the future of the game. I felt that something was going on. I started to think about how we would handle worst case scenarios, and the worst-case possibility was that the two sides would get together and form an elite National Competition of 12 teams. All the other teams would then be relegated to a supporting competition. On all the evidence I could see, the risk of Penrith being one of those relegated teams was very high indeed.

When the two media giants started shaping up to each other it was obvious that Panthers was not a high priority for either of them. It was a worrying time and I started to feel that we had to consider our position carefully and urgently.

All the clubs that had so far joined Super League had been approached by News Limited. Penrith had not. Cowan went to News and put the case that the new competition needed Penrith.

David Gallop, CEO of the new National Rugby League [NRL] remembers that Panthers was the last Sydney club to join.

Roger looked pretty carefully at the ramifications of joining or not. It took him longer to decide.

Cowan became a prominent player in the world of Super League. He was on the board, and chaired its meetings during what became known as the Super League Wars.

He was also invited to be on the international Super League board. In that capacity he attended an international board meeting in Paris, along with representatives from Australia, New Zealand, France, England, South Africa, USA and Pacific Islands. Cowan says this experience gave him an excellent opportunity to get to know the people who were driving Super League, including News Limited executives. 

Super League was due to commence in 1996 with ten teams, but a Federal Court ruling delayed its launch. Instead, a traditional ARL competition was played while the legal battle continued. At the end of 1996 the Federal Court ruled in favour of Super League, allowing the rival competition to proceed in 1997 alongside the ARL. Australian rugby league was now heading into one of the most turbulent periods in its history.

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  1. For readers seeking historical background to the emergence of Super League and Panthers’ decision to join the new competition, see the three realted Historical Context articles The Panthers Move ; The Real Money Fight ; and When Panthers Faced the Community
    ↩︎
  2. This had happened in the middle of the 1994 ARL Season. I think the Souths v Penrith at the SFS on 17th June 1994 was Gould’s last as Penrith coach. We lost that game 26-18 after being well down at half-time. Several players remarked that Gould’s half-time address was uncharacteristically one of resignation – they were puzzled by it.
    ↩︎
  3. One of the catalysts for those rumours was a large offer being made to Canberra lock Brad Clyde, which would have torpedoed salary cap limits. Of course, these sorts of accusations fly through the rugby league world.
    ↩︎
  4. There weren’t rumours about an elite ARL competition after Murdoch made his strike – at that time they were intent on staving off the raid from Murdoch. Before Murdoch struck, there were rumours about clubs opening their chequebooks in anticipation of a big change to the competition. ↩︎

← Part 28 · All Parts · Part 30→

Commentary and Contributions

Gotcha!

Part 25 of 70 — Original Chapter: Chapter 8: A Taste of Injustice

This article forms part of the serialised republication of Panthers, Passion & Politics – The Roger Cowan Years.

Start · Reader’s Guide · All Parts

Most of the police and government officers involved in the police raids on Panthers had walked away satisfied that Cowan, and the club, had nothing to answer on any of those original allegations. Mick Howe didn’t give up.

Four months later, newspaper headlines and TV bulletins revealed that Cowan had been charged with four counts of fraud. Howe had finally hit his mark. But the charges had nothing to do with the original investigation or the letter of complaint.

A chance remark to a staff member about a questionable tax deduction, and the discovery of some discrepancies in the accounts of the Panthers’ travel agency1 eventually rewarded the persistence of Detective Sergeant Mick Howe.

Early in 1986, before the investigation started, Cowan had taken a holiday in Thailand, which he booked through the Panthers travel agency. When booking the trip, he advised the manager of the agency that he was not going on club business, and that she should bill the travel expenses to his personal account. Part of the conversation touched on the tax deductibility of his trip.

It was suggested that if the trip was to Brisbane instead of Thailand, he might be able to claim the trip as a tax deduction. But it really was just a holiday, and Cowan did not claim any of the expense on tax. Unfortunately, though, on one of the travel agency records it was entered as a Brisbane trip.

In July 1986, Cowan was in his office when Mick Howe arrived.

He sounded casual and very friendly. “We’re almost finished”, he said. “I just need to look at some of the club’s trust companies. I understand there’s a travel trust? Maybe I could look at that first.

I told him “Not a problem”, with absolutely no inkling of what was happening. I picked up the phone and spoke to Irene Southern, the new travel agency manager. “Mick needs to have a look at the travel agency books. Can you give him whatever help he needs?”

When criminal barrister, Jack Birney, was called in later, his response was vigorous. “You must be crazy! You allowed a simple investigation to turn into a fishing expedition. This person has been doing everything he can to put handcuffs on you for months, and here you are doing your absolute best to help him!”’

A few days after Howe left the office, Cowan received a phone call from the Howe’s secretary.

Mick has asked me to call you to make an appointment. He would like you to come to the station. He needs a final discussion with you to clear up a few issues about minutes.’

Cowan replied, ‘Sure, when does he want me to come?’

She answered, ‘Next Tuesday and Wednesday’.

As I put the phone down, the penny dropped! All this time I had thought the best way to deal with Howe and his investigations was complete co-operation, and all I was doing was just getting myself deeper into some problem I didn’t understand. Eight months after Mick Howe first walked through Panthers’ door, I finally decided it was time to get legal advice.

Cowan’s first port of call was Steve Bowers, who was a solicitor and a personal friend. Bowers agreed urgent advice was needed before Howe’s ‘final interview’. He phoned barrister Jack Birney.2 Birney was tied up in a court case at Parramatta but agreed to see them during the court lunch break.

Cowan explained what had been happening, including the request for a two-day ‘interview’ with the detective.

‘There is no way you will be attending that interview’, Birney said, at the same time suggesting that Cowan had been holding out his wrists to allow the handcuffs to be slipped on.

Awaiting Cowan’s arrival on Tuesday morning, Mick Howe was instead surprised to be confronted by a solicitor and a leading criminal barrister.

Steve Bowers says it was a very long conversation.

Howe just kept asking questions about Roger. How many holidays he took, the renovations on his house, and so many obscure things. While he was pumping us, Birney was pumping him, to try to find exactly where he was coming from.

The discussion centred around the documents which Howe had obtained from the travel agency. At the end of the meeting, the detective told the lawyers that he intended to lay charges against Cowan. The basis of Howe’s case was that Cowan had tried to defraud the Commonwealth by claiming a tax deduction to which he was not entitled. The charges rested solely on Cowan’s trip to Thailand, and the manner in which it had been recorded by the agency.

‘The conversation went on for two and a half hours‘, says Bowers. ‘Howe eventually got sick of it, and stood up and said, ‘that’s it, get Cowan down here now, or we’re sending the paddy wagon and we’ll bring him back here in handcuffs.’‘

As the three men left the detective’s office, Bowers remembers Howe ‘ranting and raving’ as they moved towards the foyer. As they passed a conference room, a high-ranking senior policeman in a light blue dress uniform noticed Jack Birney. He greeted the barrister, and the two got into a chat about the old days at the criminal court in Sydney, as Howe hovered in the background.

Bowers says as the conversation between the two old mates was winding up, the policeman said, ‘Jack, you remember — if there’s ever anything I can do for you …’.  The barrister jumped in immediately, ‘Well as a matter of fact, there is one thing. If Detective Sergeant Howe were to issue a summons for Roger Cowan rather than coming down to the club to drag him away in handcuffs, I would be most appreciative?’

The senior police officer looked at Howe and said, ‘I think that can be arranged, can’t it, detective sergeant?’

Bowers says Howe could only growl, ‘Yes, sir!’

That evening, the lead story on the television news was that Cowan had been charged on four counts of fraud.

The likelihood that Mick Howe accidentally came across this evidence as he waded through thousands of travel agency documents is minimal. There was no money missing anywhere, and the travel agency had been paid in full by Cowan. Finding details of a particular journey, then discovering that it had been recorded incorrectly somewhere else would be an amazing stroke of luck. It would have been like finding a gold nugget in a haystack when you were actually looking for a needle.

Irene Southern remembers Howe’s visit clearly. ‘In actual fact, he had ‘waded through’ very few documents.’ She told Cowan later, ‘He spent a short time in the office, made a couple of casual requests, then went straight to your file and pulled out some documents. He knew exactly what he was looking for, and where to find it.’

Looking back, Roger Cowan supposes that a complainant from within the Club became aware of the discrepancy in the travel agency records, and tipped off Detective Sergeant Howe. It might have been mere coincidence that the old travel agency manager had been terminated a matter of days before Howe’s visit.

Jack Birney appeared for Cowan at the court hearing. Cowan’s main witness was the accountant who had prepared his tax returns for the previous year. He produced documents proving that Cowan had made no attempt to claim the Thailand trip as a tax deduction. Howe had not taken the simple and obvious step of obtaining a copy of the tax return, which would instantly have shown him there was no case to answer.

Cowan was found not guilty on all four charges.

During the hearing, Jack Birney was cross-examining Mick Howe. ‘Sergeant Howe, you have alleged that Mr Cowan committed fraud. Would you tell the court who he defrauded or attempted to defraud?’.

Howe’s answer: ‘I don’t have to say who it was.’

Former police gaming machine investigator, Steve Foote, tells what he knew of the history of the Poker Machine Task Force.

Howe, and the detectives he worked with, took a proposal to the Police Commissioner to set up the task force, probably around the late seventies or early eighties. They were asking for special resources to combat crime in clubs and were virtually a group of untouchables. The original brief was specifically to catch poker machine cheats, but the technology was progressing so fast in the early eighties, the opportunity for poker machine fraud all but vanished.

Foote says that when the task force’s main reason to exist all but disappeared, they had to find another focus to justify keeping the squad in operation, and they began to investigate club managers.

Says Foote: ‘Those guys in the task force always had a ‘holier than thou’ attitude, they were a pretty self-righteous group.’

Mick Howe resigned from the police force in 2005 at the level of Detective Inspector. He was contacted for his comments during the writing of this book but did not respond.

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  1. Panthers ran its own travel agency for may years. It operated under a separate trust company.
    ↩︎
  2. Jack Birney had been the Federal Member for Phillip from 1975 he was defeated by Jeanette McHugh in the 1983 election. Before his political career he’d been a barrister. ↩︎

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Commentary and Contributions