Derpus
Nathan Sharpe (72)
Ok was having a chat with mate yesterday, a bit like me and watches a hell of a lot of rugby, Aussie a 25 year member of at the Reds etc, so one to get a bit of gauge on rugby things with and he said one very worrying thing. When discussing Aus games on weekend, he said he didn't see Brumbies/Rebels game until sunday, I said ok you out Sat night?
The worrying thing was he said no, I just struggle to watch the Aus games straight after watching the NZ games because the step down is too much, like watching club rugby after rep rugby. The only reason I mention it, because he a real mad rugby man and if he thinks that, do you then get Fox to not show games from NZ before to keep top attention to game? I repeat he a real rugby man so, although I have heard similar from less engaged watcher's at work, it something we need to be aware of. I don't usually watch the Backpage on Fox, but saw a bit of it last night and though they not rugby men that I know of, they were talking about the gulf in class between the comps and skills. To really keep the numbers up for viewing etc we don't want people to think they watching a lesser comp in my opinion.
Don't shoot me, only what I have heard said and it concerns me.
We'll never have a commensurate quality of competition. I don't know why people think we should or could. As people so often point out it's a distant fourth on the popularity scales (probably waaaay lower once you start factoring in demographics other than middle class dudes).
It's NZ's national pastime. Rugby is not as popular in any other country in the world as it is in NZ. Even in South Africa football is way more popular (just not among the wealthy white). It's at best second in the Northern powerhouses.
So why the fuck would anyone be as good at it as NZ? No one is - and this plays out in the stats. What's NZs winning percentage over the past 30 years? 90% plus? How many Super Rugby titles? If you seriously expect all your opposition to be of the same quality you are living in dreamland.
The Aus sides have been occasionally competitive without generally being as good as the NZ sides and i don't think there is anything that could be done short of having national sides playing NZ provincial sides to further tilt the scales away from NZ.
Edit: if anything Dan this is just further justification for going it alone and ignoring NZ. Who cares if NZ provincial sides are so great if we don't have to play them.
The more i think about it the more i realise NZ need us to help fund their comp more than we need them. It's just not as simple a fix as a TT and so is still less palatable. The more NZ bang on about how great they are the less i am inclined to support a TT comp.