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Western Force and Wallabies winger Nick Cummins to join Japanese club Coca Cola West Red Sparks for 2015 WALLABIES cult figure

Nick Cummins will quit Australian rugby to play in Japan next year, ruling himself out of the World Cup. Cummins, known as the Honey Badger, will join Japanese Top League club Coca Cola West Red Sparks despite being contracted to the ARU until the end of 2015. He was released from his contract with the Force and the ARU on “compassionate grounds”. “Nick’s got a very unique situation and he’s requested a release from his contract with us and the Australian Rugby Union,” Force chief executive Mark Sinderberry said at a press conference on Friday. “Subject to some details being worked out, that will be granted on compassionate grounds. “Nick faces a very unique set of challenges and we’re very mindful of what’s going on. In conjunction with the players’ association {RUPA], we’ve been working through those details so that release will be granted. “It’s hugely disappointing but it’s ultimately more disappointing for Nick in terms of the situation he faces.”. Cummins received an offer understood to be worth far more than the ARU could afford to match, and they have handed him a release from his final year. To Dana White, "UFC Undisputed 2010" is about more than just making a quick buck off of a license. Sure, the original game sold in excess of 3.5 million units, but the UFC president sees the bigger picture of what it really means to his company. And if White's calculations are correct, the game is just the first step in building MMA fans for life. "People who buy the game aren't just learning about these fighters. Through the gameplay they're learning all of the moves and submissions, what they're all called, how to set them up," White told me as we met for an interview in Mandalay Bay's Mix Lounge in Las Vegas. "This is huge for us and for our continued growth, and it's especially good for our fighters. Even if you don't play as them in the game, you're constantly seeing their names or you remember the guy who knocked you out and then you want to go and watch him knock someone out for real." But standing in White's way of a repeated sales knockout this year is video game juggernaut EA Sports. The creators of iconic games like "Madden" and "NCAA Football" are stepping inside the virtual cage for the first time with "EA Sports MMA". "It will be interesting to see how they do," said White, "but having an MMA game without the UFC license is like trying to make 'Madden' without the NFL "EA Sports had the opportunity to get this license, but they told me: 'That is not a sport. We will never get involved in that.' They wouldn't even meet with us.

EA Sports wouldn't even meet with us about making a UFC game. Then when our game is so successful, they're like the me-toos trying to jump on board. But one thing about our fans, they're very loyal. They don't put up with stuff like that. It's not even about whether the game is good or not. It's about EA Sports being pompous and arrogant and not giving us the respect we deserved when we originally approached them." Nick Cummins should be tipping point for change in ARU policy on player sabbaticals Like a rat up a drainpipe, Nick Cummins was gone. One of only a handful of Wallabies players recognisable throughout the land, Cummins has decided to take up an offer from Japanese Top League club Coca Cola West Reds Sparks. He has been granted a release on “compassionate grounds” and has a unique set of circumstances that surround his family. But it should serve as a warning and at least help to increase the dialogue around player sabbaticals. Cummins is the latest in a string of players to take up offers around the world ahead of next year’s World Cup, a situation that was at one time only expected to happen after the 2015 event. But after first Ben Mowen and then Kane Douglas, Cummins’s departure will have sent a shudder through ARU headquarters and it may be just the start of a mass exodus. The loss of Cummins hurts the Wallabies’ playing depth but with the impending return of James O’Connor and looming eligibility of Brumbies flyer Henry Speight it’s fair to say the Force’s cult hero may have been about to slip down the pecking order. But he had value in other areas and you only had to look at who hosts ARU TV on YouTube to see his marketing potential – an avenue only really explored by the Wallabies last year. Honey Badger lookalikes have been popping up everywhere while his growing list of one-liners were a welcome change from the cliché-laden responses we’ve become so used to from today’s sporting stars. He is a character and one that will be greatly missed. But all is not lost, yet. With Cummins’s departure today the ongoing discussion around player sabbaticals has surely reached a tipping point. HONEY BADGER SWAPS MEAT FOR SUSHI French giants Toulon are circling Israel Folau

while Kurtley Beale voiced his intention to explore offers after spending much of the Test series against France waiting to come off the bench. Folau is contracted until the end of next year’s World Cup but Beale is only on the Waratahs’ and ARU’s books through to the end of 2014. The first priority must be to secure Beale’s services for 2015 and then secondly to fast-track a change of policy around player sabbaticals. If it means keeping Folau – who along with fresh-faced skipper Michael Hooper are the Wallabies biggest assets on and off the field – for two more years than there can be no argument against him taking three or even six months to take up a massive offer in French or Japanese rugby. He could secure a similar six-month deal in Toulon in 2016 at the completion of The Rugby Championship, and then return to the Waratahs for the 2017 Super Rugby season. Alternatively, he could be allowed to stay in Europe after the World Cup and play out the northern season before returning to Australia for the 2016 Rugby Championship. It will be a significant step for Australian rugby but one that has the support of some of the game’s greats like George Gregan and John Eales. The Honey Badger is gone and with him goes one of the Wallabies’ few marketing tools. Like a tree full of galahs up Pilbara way, the sabbatical debate has reached fever pitch.