Where to for Super Rugby?

[kiap]

R2 away v Tahs in Syd

Crowne Plaza Hunter Valley. Pokolbin Rugby Club and St Phillips Christian College

R3 away v Reds in Bris

R4 "home" v Brums, No 2. Sportsground in Newc

That's what rugby touring is all about. A month plus ,thousands of miles away, three tough games + travel and quarantine. How good.

 

[Crashy]

What an odd place to set up camp, considering Newcastle and the Central Coast are both about half an hour away. Lithgow would be a slightly worse option. I’m guessing they are staying at one of the vineyard resorts nearby at Pokolbin.

haha - you're not wrong there re Cessnock just pipping Lithgow.... tho Pokolbin has a proud Rugby club.

 

[The Honey Badger]

haha - you're not wrong there re Cessnock just pipping Lithgow.. tho Pokolbin has a proud Rugby club.

Could have got Roy Slaven involved at Lithgow

 

[qwerty51]

McLennan conceded Australia may not have the depth to field five teams but flagged the idea of getting more high-profile international players involved.
“I would say the depth isn’t quite there [for five teams] but we’ve got to try and build a competition for the long term,” McLennan said. “I’d consider opening more spots to overseas players just depending on how things go going through the COVID crisis. If there are international players that can come down and play a part of our competition … I think that would add a lot of interest.”

Like this thinking from McLennan - has to be a long term play with opening up the comp to everyone. It could be filled with Argies and Saffers eventually.

 

[Derpus]

I really don't get the problem with having a couple of flog teams in the competition. Shit, i don't remember seeing any calls across the ditch to cut the Blues after their umpteenth year of abject failure (current aberration excluded). Doesn't seem to be an issue for other competitions? AFL have heaps of flog teams - Carlton, Gold Coast, Melbourne. NRL have Parra, Gold Coast, Tigers etc.

We'll always have at least one or two pretty good teams that'll make the finals. One or two teams that will put up a fair fight - and yeah one absolute flog (probably the Tahs the way things are going). Sounds good to me.

 

[barbarian]

Flog teams lose money, but the difference is in the NRL/AFL the good teams subsidise the shit ones. You can wear the pain because you know it will all even out.

But with rugby it's not as easy. You can't rely on a local GF to fill your pockets, or assume there will be a mix of success rates. So you end up going into the red if the top teams don't fire.

 

[Derpus]

Flog teams lose money, but the difference is in the NRL/AFL the good teams subsidise the shit ones. You can wear the pain because you know it will all even out.

But with rugby it's not as easy. You can't rely on a local GF to fill your pockets, or assume there will be a mix of success rates. So you end up going into the red if the top teams don't fire.

Just split the revenue?

Run the comp as if it were actually professional......

Edit: and if NZ don't agree to that then they can see how much money their comp makes running it on their own.

 

[waiopehu oldboy]

Like this thinking from McLennan - has to be a long term play with opening up the comp to everyone. It could be filled with Argies and Saffers eventually.

Appears to be a grab from his appearance on The Breakdown last night where he came as close to saying "TT is the preferred option" as you possibly could without using those actual words. At one point Kirwin raised the preference some have for e.g. Manly v Randwick or Brothers v Souths over franchise footy, McLennan's response was basically that Club footy isn't broken but franchise footy is so that's what RA needs to fix, part of that fix being to invest in schools & Club footy so that in due course they're providing the franchises with the necessary quality & quantity of players. Overall he struck me as a plain talker which imo is essential in aleader esp in difficult times.

 

[Omar Comin']

Like this thinking from McLennan - has to be a long term play with opening up the comp to everyone. It could be filled with Argies and Saffers eventually.

I'm really happy to see McLennan say this. It'd be way better to have 5 Australian based teams with 20% foreign players, than to have 4 teams with all local players. The foreign players can often be some of the most marketable players too.

 

[Crashy]

Like this thinking from McLennan - has to be a long term play with opening up the comp to everyone. It could be filled with Argies and Saffers eventually.

I think the point that a lot of people miss is that no countries apart from NZ have the depth to fill 5 super rugby quality sides. Take the foreigners out of France and England and you're not left with a huge amount of locals. I actually think more foreign players is a great idea - no more than 2 or 3 a team though.
The EPL in football does alright.....

 

[Derpus]

England could field 5 reasonably strong franchises.

 

[qwerty51]

I'm really happy to see McLennan say this. It'd be way better to have 5 Australian based teams with 20% foreign players, than to have 4 teams with all local players. The foreign players can often be some of the most marketable players too.

20%? I couldn't care less if it was 80% tbh. This whole Wallabies mindset has to stop. We need domestic rugby to be successful. Franchises, not development pathways. Only way to compete with NRL & AFL.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

I'm really happy to see McLennan say this. It'd be way better to have 5 Australian based teams with 20% foreign players, than to have 4 teams with all local players. The foreign players can often be some of the most marketable players too.

Lot of messaging in press that serious consideration being given to make national team eligibility for wallabies and all blacks available for any players playing super rugby. This makes what you state closer to a sensible reality to grow a successful super rugby competition.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

I think the point that a lot of people miss is that no countries apart from NZ have the depth to fill 5 super rugby quality sides. Take the foreigners out of France and England and you're not left with a huge amount of locals. I actually think more foreign players is a great idea - no more than 2 or 3 a team though.
The EPL in football does alright...

I almost want to give this a thumbs up but I don’t know if limiting to 2 or 3 as more talent better team, grow fans, can eventually grow the number of teams then shrink..

 

[qwerty51]

Lot of messaging in press that serious consideration being given to make national team eligibility for wallabies and all blacks available for any players playing super rugby. This makes what you state closer to a sensible reality to grow a successful super rugby competition.

Important NZRU come to the table. Will stop people complaining Aus doesn't have the depth for 5 teams. Fill them with Kiwis for all I care.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

Important NZRU come to the table. Will stop people complaining Aus doesn't have the depth for 5 teams. Fill them with Kiwis for all I care.

The reality is EPL, UK and French rugby pro comps provide the blueprint for what makes a successful pro competition so if super rugby is to ever work the open borders Philosophy regarding selecting players for national teams from super rugby teams play for regardless which country super rugby team aligned to.

Common sense and Commercial sense dictates this

 

[qwerty51]

Why stop there? Imagine if the NRL was only allowed to be filled with Australian eligible players. No Kiwis, Poms or PIs.

I wonder how successful that would be..

 

[Rugbynutter39]

QWERTY51 I have been on the side of it makes sense for open borders policy for super rugby but with caps. Whether that is 2, 3, 4

Reality is better players outside of this super rugby comp that are good will chase European and Japan dollars.

 

[half]

Gotta come down on the side of more teams. More spaces means in time more players trying to get in tis a way of expanding the player base. As for overseas players yes yes yes as many have mentioned tis the way all major and even minor competitions operate world over, we are living in dark ages scared of our own shadow.

Totally out of left field, and no one has ever done this, but yonks back in league a Balmain player called Denis Tutty took league to court for control of where he played. I think it was in the early 90's a European football player called Bowman beat FIFA on a player controlling where they played. Again I think it was the 90's when Kevin Ryan in league stopped league establishing a draft similar to the AFL. Many legal experts have said if an AFL player took the AFL to court their draft system would be seen to be in breach of the "Trade Practices Act" as was the verdict in the league case that Ryan won in his league case.

So based on all this I do wonder aloud if a player wanted to play in say France for more money but still wanted to play for the Wallabies, are or is RA in breach of the Trade Practices Act in ruling a player out. As being a national representative can and often leads to sponsorship's. As I said totally out of left field.

 

[formerflanker]

Gotta come down on the side of more teams. More spaces means in time more players trying to get in tis a way of expanding the player base. As for overseas players yes yes yes as many have mentioned tis the way all major and even minor competitions operate world over, we are living in dark ages scared of our own shadow.

Totally out of left field, and no one has ever done this, but yonks back in league a Balmain player called Denis Tutty took league to court for control of where he played. I think it was in the early 90's a European football player called Bowman beat FIFA on a player controlling where they played. Again I think it was the 90's when Kevin Ryan in league stopped league establishing a draft similar to the AFL. Many legal experts have said if an AFL player took the AFL to court their draft system would be seen to be in breach of the "Trade Practices Act" as was the verdict in the league case that Ryan won in his league case.

So based on all this I do wonder aloud if a player wanted to play in say France for more money but still wanted to play for the Wallabies, are or is RA in breach of the Trade Practices Act in ruling a player out. As being a national representative can and often leads to sponsorship's. As I said totally out of left field.

Rings a bell here too. Was "Restraint of trade" a key issue?
A good topic for an investigative rugby journalist.