Dan54
Tim Horan (67)
I will have to look at the Sean Maloney thing John S, thanks for the info. I am a tragic and watch a shit load of these.
Where to for Super Rugby?
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I will have to look at the Sean Maloney thing John S, thanks for the info. I am a tragic and watch a shit load of these.
Omar Comin'
Chilla Wilson (44)
I'd be happy with domestic comps plus champions league, but would prefer them to be separate competitions rather than conferences and playoffs within a single competition (so more like a shortened version of the European style season)
A single grand final for the Australian championship would be good, but even if it was first past the post I think it would be great to have a national champion every year. They then move onto the Champions League and have a chance to win a double, while other teams get a chance to make up for losing the domestic championship by winning the champions league.
A single grand final for the Australian championship would be good, but even if it was first past the post I think it would be great to have a national champion every year. They then move onto the Champions League and have a chance to win a double, while other teams get a chance to make up for losing the domestic championship by winning the champions league.
John S
Chilla Wilson (44)
https://www.rugby.com.au/videos/2020/05/12/rugby-nation-episode-29
ANd if you look for The Rugby Nation Show on your podcast app, you'll find it (only last 5 eps on podcast as well as video)
hoggy
Trevor Allan (34)
I agree about the separation, each country has its domestic agenda and then meets for a champions league style competition.
Even re-branding surely the name Super Rugby has to go.
Omar Comin'
Chilla Wilson (44)
If you can manage a way to have 16 teams in the international tournament another option would be to make it a straight knockout with two tiers after the first round.
So you essentially have a round of 16 followed by the Sevens inspired format of Cup Quarterfinals and Bowl Quarterfinals (or Champions Cup and Challenge Cup or whatever). Then every team would get 2-4 matches.
drewprint
John Solomon (38)
Strong agree. The domestic comp has to be a valuable stand alone event all on its own - winning IT is special. Subsequent qualification to the next ‘champions league’ comp is the cream on top. If the domestic comp is run purely as a qualification tool it’ll fall flat.
RedsHappy
Tony Shaw (54)
Just btw: the notion that pro rugby is 'dead and doomsdayed' in Australia is utterly misguided and mythical.
Add the total $s _that still today_ flow into Aust pro rugby just from game-day and sponsorship at Wallaby and Super levels and there is absolute economic viability there provided:
The idea that 'amateur rugby' will just go on happily and quietly flourish at local levels if pro rugby dies off here by 2021 is also seriously economically misguided. Take out all the $s that amateur rugby directly or indirectly gets as routine down flow from the pro code and allegedly replacing that with 'increased $ subscriptions from local supporters' will prove impossible.
The amateur game will be badly hit and become far more vulnerable here if Aust pro rugby folds.
Add the total $s _that still today_ flow into Aust pro rugby just from game-day and sponsorship at Wallaby and Super levels and there is absolute economic viability there provided:
- the ridiculously high level of salaries paid, exorbitant headcount and unjustified functional duplication across pro rugby here is drastically restructured and rationalised
- Super Rugby is binned once and for all and replaced by a strictly pro domestic comp (maybe with some trans-Tasman overlay at the very end of the domestic play routine). This comp to be based upon 'good and not star' players. This will attract FTA and Pay TV $ of at least $8-$10m pa.
- the RA board and most of the boards of the local RUs are deeply renovated and the broad governance model here totally changed
The idea that 'amateur rugby' will just go on happily and quietly flourish at local levels if pro rugby dies off here by 2021 is also seriously economically misguided. Take out all the $s that amateur rugby directly or indirectly gets as routine down flow from the pro code and allegedly replacing that with 'increased $ subscriptions from local supporters' will prove impossible.
The amateur game will be badly hit and become far more vulnerable here if Aust pro rugby folds.
Finsbury Girl
Trevor Allan (34)
Super 10 was effectively the provincial rugby equivalent of the champions league.
How it became the bloated, broken mess it is today is truly a lesson on how to kill the goose that lays the golden egg, yet sports administrators always seem to do it.
Bigger is not always better, more is not always better.
How it became the bloated, broken mess it is today is truly a lesson on how to kill the goose that lays the golden egg, yet sports administrators always seem to do it.
Bigger is not always better, more is not always better.
It cuts both ways though. There has to be enough care factor to winning the competition. The NRC certainly didn't have that.
If fans aren't engaged enough in the competition and view winning as being that meaningful then the fact that more Aussie teams are a shot at making the finals doesn't really matter.
I'd say that the Tahs winning Super Rugby in 2014 was one of the best moments of my life, as a sports fan or otherwise. It meant a huge amount to me.
I still cite the 1989 Rugby League Grand Final where the Balmain Tigers lost as one of the saddest moments in my life. I was only 8 but I was a huge fan and went to a lot of games and I've never really gotten over it completely.
That passion as a sports fan is everything and it used to be there for the Super Rugby competition but has disappeared for too many people and we need something different. It needs to be meaningful though. Merely having a chance to win isn't enough.
WorkingClassRugger
David Codey (61)
Well, the Aus Super Rugby format that has been said to be planned for this year is a 12 week competition featuring 6 teams playing home and away for 10 games plus two weeks of finals. Hence why the Sunwolves have been mentioned. In the future they could be replaced with Fiji while a combined Samoa/Tonga team could play out of NZ. This way they could look to have a largely national based competition but also use qualifying for the Super 8/10 as a reward for that for making it to the final.
Could also look to add Japan to the RC and play it as a single round robin event.
waiopehu oldboy
Stirling Mortlock (74)
Non-paywalled version here:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby...super-rugbys-bold-plan-to-keep-japan-involved
waiopehu oldboy
Stirling Mortlock (74)
From the article linked above (which I assume is identical to the SMH one):
"Harrison and Kearns want an audience with Clarke to discuss a list of assurances given to them by former RA director Peter Wiggs before his resignation last week."
Read into that what you will......
dru
Tim Horan (67)
Proponents of further shrink to greatness have yet to explain how it achieves anything other than kicking the can down the road. The broadcaster has shown that they don't highly value a sporting competition with little local content, teams not getting a regular home game season (due to international travel) and odd start times.
The franchises have shown the schedule is insufficient to build acceptable home crowd and to build commercial that are sustainable.
It isn't made up. And that commercial down trend has no plan at all to turnaround.
Those proponents are quick to cast aspersion on a domestic alternative on the basis of cost, without considering cost within some form of Super.
This all said I suspect that a domestic comp may be destined to fail. NZ must be considered, and they will not simply drop back to a 5 team national comp (in the medium term). IF RA doesn't get on board a Super comp, there is nothing to stop NZ/SANZAAR going direct to key Aus franchises and asking for interest. And you'd be mad to think that Reds/Waratahs/Rebels/Brumbies would stick with the Aus powers that be in a domestic comp if they had the chance to join as new version of Super. And that would kill a fledgling domestic system. We also wont get 4 teams let alone 5.
And that is IF RA has the stomach for real change and sufficient leadership to start the process toward answering those broadcast requirements.
It's sad, but the reality is we will end up with a (likely reduced team) Super either with us as a willing participant or without our input.
Where things travel from there in the Aus rugby world I have no idea. But we start at not good and continue downward.
The franchises have shown the schedule is insufficient to build acceptable home crowd and to build commercial that are sustainable.
It isn't made up. And that commercial down trend has no plan at all to turnaround.
Those proponents are quick to cast aspersion on a domestic alternative on the basis of cost, without considering cost within some form of Super.
This all said I suspect that a domestic comp may be destined to fail. NZ must be considered, and they will not simply drop back to a 5 team national comp (in the medium term). IF RA doesn't get on board a Super comp, there is nothing to stop NZ/SANZAAR going direct to key Aus franchises and asking for interest. And you'd be mad to think that Reds/Waratahs/Rebels/Brumbies would stick with the Aus powers that be in a domestic comp if they had the chance to join as new version of Super. And that would kill a fledgling domestic system. We also wont get 4 teams let alone 5.
And that is IF RA has the stomach for real change and sufficient leadership to start the process toward answering those broadcast requirements.
It's sad, but the reality is we will end up with a (likely reduced team) Super either with us as a willing participant or without our input.
Where things travel from there in the Aus rugby world I have no idea. But we start at not good and continue downward.
RedsHappy
Tony Shaw (54)
dru, IMO there is no intelligent, fact-driven basis to say that a purely domestic pro rugby competition in Aust 'simply cannot work and be made economically viable'.
There is every fact-driven basis to say that almost any version of the stale, outmoded and unpopular Super Rugby quad continental model is killing pro rugby here and its core economics. Even a 'slimmed down' version of it is as doomed as the bloated version we have today. The intrinsics to this modal are busted.
dru
Tim Horan (67)
Sorry RH, that was what I thought I was saying.
However, I dont think we're going to get what we want.
Rugbynutter39
Michael Lynagh (62)
Would love a super rugby quality (evenly balanced) but my semi pro comment reflects challenges of delivering that. Nrc bad example as manufactured teams for extremely short comp with never any marketing behind it. Sure trans Tasman could work with Fiji, Samoa but will they play ball and equally if no open borders seeing nz sides whip oz sides won’t work (and answer is not less oz sides to watch)...so the debate continues.
But you can’t take evidence of nrc as semi pro comp won’t work!
RedsHappy
Tony Shaw (54)
Yes, sorry dru, I just wanted to emphasise agreement and again draw out the essentials.
And the latest New Black amongst some of the GAGR mods here is that 'pro rugby in Australia is likely dead and buried and intrinsically unsustainable as it has been for 20 or years', and I just think that's wildly over-pessimistic bunkum and not supported by a close examination of the core facts of the economic structure and lousy management quality of pro rugby today.
FFS _even in 2019_ we could get crowds of say 30,000+ to Wallabies matches. Say just 4 home Tests like that @ average gross ticket prices of $65 and we have gross income of c. $8,000,000 pa. Add to that Test sponsorship $s and Super gate income and its local sponsorship and you have a very material annual income line _before_ any allowance is made for media income!
And that's when the pro versions of Aust rugby are in the toilet like never before.
The problems of the pro code are all eminently fixable:
- wildly excessive cost and headcount base
- terrible general management and governance model (just look at results FFS)
- insufficient depth of quality pro coaching
- crazy money-hunting adherence to woefully broken Super Rugby and all its baggage
- inappropriate remuneration system for players (eg zero incentive to win, etc)
RedsHappy
Tony Shaw (54)
100%. NRC was a weird, ill-conceived love child of nothing very much. It was attached to nothing meaningful in tribal land. NSWRU never even got behind it, was just one problem. The teams were made-up synthetic and rooted neither in Super or Club IDs of old and micro-cultures of old. Filled with amateurs or close to. A mess of contrasts and lost identities.
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