Category: Sports

Alpine could seek millions in compensation at the high court if their Australian reserve Oscar Piastri refuses to race for them next season, according to the Formula One team’s principal Otmar Szafnauer.

Renault-owned Alpine announced highly-rated Piastri last week as replacement for double world champion Fernando Alonso in their 2023 lineup but the 21-year-old has ruled it out.

McLaren, who are fighting Alpine for fourth in the championship, have reportedly told Daniel Ricciardo he is being dropped for Piastri, last year’s Formula Two champion.

Szafnauer said all the indications from their base in Paris were that Alpine were prepared for a legal battle once the sport’s August break was over. “Going to the high court is over 90% certain that’s what we’ll do,” he told Reuters on Monday.

The American said he contacted F1’s contract recognition board (CRB) last week but that avenue might not be sufficient.

“If the CRB says ‘your license is only valid at Alpine’, and then he [Piastri] says ‘that’s great but I’m never driving for them, I’ll just sit out a year’, then you’ve got to go to the high court for compensation,” said Szafnauer.

There has been speculation that the two teams will ultimately come to an understanding that could see race-winner Ricciardo return to Alpine, the Australian’s employers before McLaren.

Alpine have spent heavily on preparing Piastri for F1, with independent tests and thousands of kilometers in last year’s car including one at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.

An F1 power unit alone costs some 1.75m euros and there is also the expense of a dedicated test team of mechanics and engineers who need flights, cars and hotels.

“We haven’t sat down with the accountants to figure out everything we’ve spent. We will have to do that if we go to the high court,” said Szafnauer.

He said Piastri had signed a heads of terms agreement with Alpine in November last year which set out the path to a 2023 race debut. The deal included the possibility of being loaned to another team for a year. The legal argument will likely revolve around potential loopholes.

Piastri had looked set for a year at tail-enders Williams before Alonso, seemingly close to an extension at Alpine, suddenly announced he was joining Aston Martin and sent the driver market into a spin.

Szafnauer said he understood Alonso’s reasoning, with the money and length of contract likely key factors for the 41-year-old Spaniard.

Right now Australia are unbeaten and leading the 2022 Rugby Championship. Let that sink in for a moment. For long-suffering fans it is a break in the clouds, a ray of light casting everything and everyone in Wallaby gold, a rugby rainbow that’s beautiful because it cannot last.

Or can it? After all, Australia defeated the team sitting third (Argentina) on the weekend. Currently sitting second (South Africa) are a side the Wallabies conquered twice last year. And the team in fourth (New Zealand) are in an almighty slump, having lost three Tests in a row for the first time in 24 years. The All Blacks have now lost five of their last six Tests, and up until Sunday, so had the Wallabies.

But the 41-26 win against Los Pumas has instilled hope, much of it drawn from the way it was won. Once again the Wallabies muffed the start and were punished on the scoresheet. But as they did against England in Perth, they kept their nerve. The tougher it got, the better they played. If the darkest hour is indeed before dawn, Sunday was a day character – and characters – shone through.

Once again, the Wallabies were sucker-punched before the kick-off. Last month, it was playmaker Quade Cooper going down with a calf injury in the first Test warm-up and not being able to contest the Ella-Mobbs series. In Mendoza it was Michael Hooper, the side’s best player, captain and seemingly indestructible talisman, flying home with a “mindset” issue on the eve of the first Test.

Dave Rennie had lost nine frontline players to injury in the England series, at a devastating attrition rate. Before this Test too Samu Kerevi blew his ACL and Dave Porecki suffered a concussion to join Angus Bell (toe), Andrew Kellaway (hamstring), Scott Sio (shoulder), Tom Banks (arm) and Hooper on the sidelines. Against a Pumas side purring after upsetting Scotland, these blows might once have been deadly.

It seemed so when Australia again fumbled the start and through ill-discipline, over-eagerness and bone-headed decision-making, gifted the home side a 10-point lead after 15 minutes. Yet they found a way back, banishing early yips, shutting out the raucous crowd and building forward pressure, giving Cooper the time and space to sow doubt in the defensive line and unleash the gold rushers out wide.

Even when Cooper’s Achilles tendon imploded in the 46th minute with Australia still nine points down, the Wallabies lifted a gear. Prop James Slipper, no stranger to facing down mental demons, had stepped into Hooper’s shoes as captain and with so many stars missing and their leader in 68 of his 121 Tests flying home, his rallying cry to his three debutantes was simple: “Make Hoops proud.”

Fraser McReight and Jed Holloway had taken radically different paths to their debut Tests on Sunday. Holloway, 29, is a country boy, a Yamba Buccaneer, and a journeyman who’d arrived in his gold jersey via stints in Japan, the US and a period of self-imposed exile. Fraser McReight, 23, is a wild-haired Sunshine Coast kid with a crazy-brave tenacity and work ethic that makes him Hooper’s natural heir.

Cooper had exited the field and the playbook had left with him when this odd couple turned the game. Shoulder-to-shoulder, Holloway and McReight charged into the Argentinian defence. With the ball under his wing, McReight stumbled and looked to be falling short when Holloway reached back and, by the scruff of his jersey from him, dragged his teammate over the stripe to get Australia back within one point.

The tide was turned by force of mateship and Australia scored the last 24 points of the Test. What made it special was Holloway’s childhood mate (and teammate since he was 10 years old), Matt Gibbon, also made his debut on Sunday.

With both his parents suffering mental disabilities, Gibbon, 27, had grown up wild on a cattle farm in Alstonville, NSW, until his grandfather took him in and channeled the boy’s feral streak into rugby, training Matt and his brother with an old stock whip cracking at their heels like they were brumbies. The old man had died the week before this Test, but with Holloway by his side, Gibbon took the field.

Last month, Australia lost their playmaker, their fullback, the foundation of their scrum and their lineout caller within the first 25 minutes of a Test and, with 14 men on the park, still found a path to victory. On Sunday, with indomitable characters Holloway, McReight, Gibbon and Slipper et al writing the script, they gave a glimpse of the character of a Wallabies side that can shock critics and shake the world.

Words are not deeds and there is a long way to go until the 2023 Rugby World Cup in September. But win again on Sunday and take this team, with that momentum, into the next four Tests (three at home), against South Africa and New Zealand, and Australia can give themselves a very real shot at a Rugby Championship for the first time since 2015, and – perhaps – a first Bledisloe Cup since 2002.

Wayne Bennett admits things are “progressing slowly” as he tries to build an NRL team from scratch to compete in the elite competition next year.

The Dolphins will enter the league ahead of the 2023 season and supercoach Bennett is charged with compiling a 30-man roster strong enough to compete with the best in the business.

With just three months until Bennett will want to kick off pre-season training with his players, the Dolphins have signed only 19 to the top squad, supplemented by a number of development contracts.

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The Dolphins look fairly stocked for experienced forwards, with the likes of Jesse Bromwich, Felise Kaufusi, and Kenny Bromwich committed to the expansion team. But the current list lacks genuine star power.

Bennett has been knocked back by a host of rugby league superstars, including Kalyn Ponga, Reece Walsh, Brandon Smith, and – for the time being, at least – Cameron Munster.

There’s been calls for the governing body to step in and either help the Dolphins sign a marquee player, or delay their introduction into the league.

“(Recruitment is) progressing slowly,” Bennett said on Monday.

“I’m pretty happy with where we’re at. We don’t totally have all the players that we want, but we know what we’re doing and we’re slowing building.

Stream the NRL premiership 2022 live and free on 9Now

“We have 19 players contracted at the moment – plus a few trainees and that – we still have good options out there, we’ve just got to make the right decisions.

“We want to have a competitive team next year, and at the same time we want to have a load of young players coming through over the next four or fives years who will go on to be wonderful players.

“What we’ve paid for the players has been good value for them and good value for us, and we have got a fair bit left in the cap to get those players we are looking for.

“We won’t have that excuse that we can’t afford that bloke, if he is the right bloke.”

Bennett has ruffled plenty of feathers in the NRL over his pursuit of a marquee player, who the Dolphins could pay as much as $1.5 million – more than $200,000 more than the highest annual salary ever paid to a player in Australia.

Knights legend Andrew Johns threw verbal barbs at Bennett for flying to Sydney to meet with Ponga. Melbourne lodged a complaint with the NRL over Bennett’s repeated attempts to lure Munster away from the Storm, while the Dolphins and Warriors got in a stink over Walsh’s decision to join the Broncos instead of Bennett’s side.

The legendary coach has been criticized for failing to recruit a marquee star to date.

Bennett explained why certain players haven’t been keen on accepting his advances.

“It’s the unknown for the players, is the issue,” he said.

“The players I’ve been most keen on are the ones who have been asking who they’re going to play with. The ones I worry about want to know who else is playing with them.

“That’s the unknown. When I took the position here we had no players, so I’m confident enough with what I can do, and I want them to trust the fact we can build a good team here.”

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