Where to for Super Rugby?

[Wilson]

World rugby has announced a new global calendar with the June break moving to July: http://www.worldrugby.org/news/232038

So at least the super rugby season will be played without interruption from 2020 onwards

 

[Dan54]

From a kiwi point of view, do fans really want more games against South Africa or is that just the administration wanting it that way??

I don't know too many kiwis going "fuck yea lets get up at 2-3am to watch a game" or too many kiwis that are really know South African playing rosters like they know the Aussie ones.

I know the time thing is an issue Southsider, but as a kiwi I do want to see kiwi teams play SA teams, as much as I want to see them play Aus teams to be honest. I know the Aus rosters better than SA because I live in Aus so read the Aus news etc more and am involved in Aus rugby in down at the local club etc, but would guess a lot of rugby people at home in NZ would know the SA teams as well as Aus! Perhaps the other thing is although I record the games from SA and watch in morning,I didn't when in NZ as 3am in Aus is 5am in NZ so, I would find that not too early to get up, I accept I in a minority though.
To sum up in my opinion, I know it has it's problems as does Argentina being in the comp, I would be disappointed if NZ teams didn't play SA teams, and believe they are just as important as Aus games.

 

[TOCC]

The damage done shows no signs of abating. The ARU has continued its ban on Australian Super Rugby clubs contracting non-Wallabies until there is some resolution of the crisis. And now is when clubs most need to be active in the marketplace.

Inevitably, as one Super Rugby coach complained yesterday, players will put certainty ahead of the possible survival of their clubs to sign contracts abroad. Certainly player managers are already pushing them strongly in the direction of offshore contracts but under the present circumstances players would be entitled to feel that if they delay, they will be left at the altar.

“We could lose six or seven players,” one coach said. “And if we’re losing that many, then I imagine other clubs are experiencing the same thing.”

The level of incompetence in the handling of this whole issue is quite staggering, there are detrimental consequences for Australian Super Rugby teams if it's they are unable to start recruiting/re-signing players soon.




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[Rugbynutter39]

I know the time thing is an issue Southsider, but as a kiwi I do want to see kiwi teams play SA teams, as much as I want to see them play Aus teams to be honest. I know the Aus rosters better than SA because I live in Aus so read the Aus news etc more and am involved in Aus rugby in down at the local club etc, but would guess a lot of rugby people at home in NZ would know the SA teams as well as Aus! Perhaps the other thing is although I record the games from SA and watch in morning,I didn't when in NZ as 3am in Aus is 5am in NZ so, I would find that not too early to get up, I accept I in a minority though.
To sum up in my opinion, I know it has it's problems as does Argentina being in the comp, I would be disappointed if NZ teams didn't play SA teams, and believe they are just as important as Aus games.

Payto has the answer we.need i.e. a two conference rugby super bowl. I also agree is about top 4 of each conference going through so in oz and nz conference no oz teams make top 4 playoff, no oz.sides go through. The other point to negotiate payto is to allow teams in oz_nz conference to have a minimum of 12 domestic players in their squad (or number to be agreed).

Bring on the super bowl...As we can .make a great trans tasman completion that can finally make a dent in nrl market share.

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[Rugbynutter39]

I know the time thing is an issue Southsider, but as a kiwi I do want to see kiwi teams play SA teams, as much as I want to see them play Aus teams to be honest. I know the Aus rosters better than SA because I live in Aus so read the Aus news etc more and am involved in Aus rugby in down at the local club etc, but would guess a lot of rugby people at home in NZ would know the SA teams as well as Aus! Perhaps the other thing is although I record the games from SA and watch in morning,I didn't when in NZ as 3am in Aus is 5am in NZ so, I would find that not too early to get up, I accept I in a minority though.
To sum up in my opinion, I know it has it's problems as does Argentina being in the comp, I would be disappointed if NZ teams didn't play SA teams, and believe they are just as important as Aus games.

Dan let nz play sa sides in the playoff and.let's have a trans Tasman completion that can better compete against other domestic competitions. Do that you might actually long term get better oz sides to play against, bigger crowds and more money. Win win for everyone. Especially early years as more likely top 4 sides going through to playoffs against other conference will.Most likely be kiwi sides as we rebuild and impact of allowing players to play for any trans Tasman team (with minimum quotas) starts to flow through

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[Wilson]

If we do maintain all the teams I'd love to see an agreement allowing more freedom of movement between sanzaar nations - basically if you're playing anywhere in super rugby you are eligible as though you were playing in your home nation. It helps redistribute talent and should boost some of the struggling sides, particularly the sunwolves.

Additionally it will hopefully help offset European poaching, the money probably won't compete but the travel aspect is there and if it keeps one in five who would have otherwise left I'd call that a win. Can't see the kiwis ever agreeing to it though.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

If we do maintain all the teams I'd love to see an agreement allowing more freedom of movement between sanzaar nations - basically if you're playing anywhere in super rugby you are eligible as though you were playing in your home nation. It helps redistribute talent and should boost some of the struggling sides, particularly the sunwolves.

Additionally it will hopefully help offset European poaching, the money probably won't compete but the travel aspect is there and if it keeps one in five who would have otherwise left I'd call that a win. Can't see the kiwis ever agreeing to it though.

I wonder if aru ever had contingency plans should sanzaar and.super rugby unravel.

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[Twoilms]

If we do maintain all the teams I'd love to see an agreement allowing more freedom of movement between sanzaar nations - basically if you're playing anywhere in super rugby you are eligible as though you were playing in your home nation. It helps redistribute talent and should boost some of the struggling sides, particularly the sunwolves.

Additionally it will hopefully help offset European poaching, the money probably won't compete but the travel aspect is there and if it keeps one in five who would have otherwise left I'd call that a win. Can't see the kiwis ever agreeing to it though.

This is a slippery slope that ends with Australia selecting players based overseas. I can't see this being anything but the ultimate outcome for a modernizing international game. I always think of South American football which gets plundered regularly by Europe. In all rights they should have the strongest domestic leagues based purely on player production but because they don't have the money they just can't keep them local.

As with the All Blacks, the only way to keep players local is prestige and success at a national level and even then it's not 100%.

 

[Wilson]

This is a slippery slope that ends with Australia selecting players based overseas. I can't see this being anything but the ultimate outcome for a modernizing international game. I always think of South American football which gets plundered regularly by Europe. In all rights they should have the strongest domestic leagues based purely on player production but because they don't have the money they just can't keep them local.

As with the All Blacks, the only way to keep players local is prestige and success at a national level and even then it's not 100%.

See I see this as staving off that inevitably, potentially it'd be combined with a repeal of the 60 test rule, depending on how successful it is.

It may also increase Australian interest in south African games too - iknow if quade was playing 10 for the stormers I'd be a hell of alot more interested in watching their games

 

[dru]

I wonder if aru ever had contingency plans should sanzaar and.super rugby unravel.

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This is my biggest bug-bear.

If, and I'm happy to recognise now that perhaps NZRZU position is possibly less entrenched than I thought it was, we were to be locked in to a Super Rugby that inevitably continued an on-going decline in professional rugby in Australia (yes I acknowledge the grass roots debate even if not in agreement with all of it), we really need a contingency plan.

Moreso, I dont see how that contingency could cope with a team being cut. So for me this is a line that cant be crossed.

Can you imagine a scenario, lets say Force gets cut. One or two years and Super implodes. "Gidday Perth, how'd you like to re-join professional rugby with a new domestic comp?"

I'm happy to perceive a future Super comp with fewer teams. Selected on a representational basis out of a professional comp.

I'd be happy to see a rational draw on a cut down Super, trans Tasman style, plus friends if need be.

I'd be happy to see a Super rugy comp with SA, NZ and friends (if needs be) that was a rational structure, allows Aus teams continuity in home games and commercials of the derbies.

We have obviously received little formally at this stage, but positions that were formerly voiced as indelible achieved none of the above for Australia.

That contingency is required, and for me dictates we can not allow a team to be sacrificed.

 

[blindsider]

after the quality of play in the Australian super rugby sides, we need to cut one. we dont have the cattle to support 5 super teams & it will show at the wallabies level. Less teams means more competition for starting spots & tougher games each week, which we need, not only for the players but the fans.

 

[Twoilms]

after the quality of play in the Australian super rugby sides, we need to cut one. we dont have the cattle to support 5 super teams & it will show at the wallabies level. Less teams means more competition for starting spots & tougher games each week, which we need, not only for the players but the fans.

If we didn't have 100 odd professional rugby players in Europe we would have 5 competitive teams.

If you contract now we just lose more to Europe, that's it. It may condense talent a little more in the very short term.

We need money and lots of it. You get money by selling a good product. The product at the moment is crap.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

An 18-team Super Rugby should never have gone ahead and needs to be blown up and rebuilt – on Australia's terms.

good article with interesting analysis

 

[mudskipper]

I reckon the Rebels and Brumbies should merge, becoming the Melbourne Brumbies. Play (say) 2 games plus a trial in Canberra a year and the rest at AAMI. Like the NRL model for mergers, the ARU should make it attractive (either financially or in player concessions or even just in terms of draw preferences somehow) if they are able to do so. Even their colour schemes can be integrated without great grief.

I can't see the force leaving or merging. Only other geographically logical merger would be for Waratahs and Brumbies to join but that seems unlikely to be a happy marriage.

You're dreaming... Brumbies play out of canberra...

 

[papabear]

Brumbies have a contract with ACT govt to play there, they get some cash out of it.

Also the ACT is far closer to sydney and in the middle of nsw.

 

[Scooter]

I wonder if aru ever had contingency plans should sanzaar and.super rugby unravel.

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Rugbynutter39 the ARU have a question for you what is a contingency plan?

 

[Rugbynutter39]

after the quality of play in the Australian super rugby sides, we need to cut one. we dont have the cattle to support 5 super teams & it will show at the wallabies level. Less teams means more competition for starting spots & tougher games each week, which we need, not only for the players but the fans.

Short term possibly but far from guaranteed as more likely more players head overseas. Long term definitely not as will damage grass roots as why would I want to play rugby if even less professional opportunities. We are here because of the neglect of grass roots and the irony is they cut a team without a plan they will damage grass roots even further.

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[John S]

Surely the smart strategic thing to do (amongst many others) in the current Super teams imbroglio is to cut the Force or Rebels and relocate the Brumbies to Western Sydney (which is where the original Super expansion should absolutely have been vs Perth or Melbourne). Then get a crack head coach (that's clearly not what Larkham is) and business CEO (not the second rater they have now) into the WS Brumbies and rebuild out from there.

So NSW Waratahs would then be essentially Sydney (excluding Western Sydney), and rest of NSW? That doesn't make much sense.

 

[half]

I assume this is true and if so the board should step down IMO...

http://www.northweststar.com.au/sto...18-team-model-and-start-over-says-consultant/

An 18-team Super Rugby should never have gone ahead and needs to be blown up and rebuilt - on Australia's terms.

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That's the view of the veteran sports consultant who designed the Super Netball concept and twice warned the Australian Rugby Union it was jeopardising its very existence by going down the expansion path with South Africa and New Zealand.
Colin Smith, whose firm Global Media and Sports warned the Australian Rugby Union about the challenges inherent in the Super Rugby model in 2009 and 2013, said rugby in Australia was at an "absolutely critical juncture" and would not recover if the game's administrators did not stand up for what was in the sport's best interests at home.
With a cone of silence enveloping the four-nation SANZAAR joint venture and speculation strengthening that the agreed position was a reduction to 15 teams, Smith said he had not seen rugby in worse conditions since his first involvement with the code in 2005.
He said there was merit in calls for an independent Super Rugby commission to replace the SANZAAR joint venture as competition administrator.
"The [Super Rugby] competition has a fundamental design problem. It should never have gone ahead," he said.
"There's an argument in my view that an independent commission running Super Rugby, as opposed to each country having a veto, needs to be considered. In addition to this Australian rugby should be considering going it alone with a revamp or re-casting of the NRC. That's controversial but all options have to be on the table. How do we make Super Rugby work for Australia?"
Smith's thoughts are not news to the game's administrators. He first warned then-ARU boss John O'Neill in 2009 that growing competition for broadcast rights in the northern hemisphere meant Australia and New Zealand would become a hunting ground for European clubs. Four years later he advised O'Neill's successor, Bill Pulver, and Pulver's New Zealand Rugby Union counterpart Steve Tew, in a joint-ARU and NZRU-funded report, that broadcasters and fans in both markets wanted more local derbies.
In 2014, with expansion talk on the cards for the then 15-team Super Rugby competition, GMS compiled a 100-page report for the Rugby Union Players' Association. It warned that a proposed 17- or 18-team model would affect television ratings and stadium attendances and recommended pursuing a 10-team Australasian competition.
RUPA handed over the report to the ARU, but in the following months it became apparent that southern hemisphere rugby would be a major beneficiary of a bidding war between UK broadcasters BT Sport and Sky Sports, which promised to rain down cash on the SANZAAR joint venture. It did just that, but true to the predictions of Smith and others, the ARU's record $275 million broadcast deal only papered over the cracks.
The 18-team Super Rugby format, which features fewer local derbies than earlier iterations, has resulted in weaker domestic television ratings in Australia and South Africa and, most damagingly, less revenue for the five Australian Super Rugby clubs. With more money than ever before flowing into the game from cashed-up overseas broadcasters, clubs are still going broke. The ARU, obliged to operate five licences under the terms of the SANZAAR agreement, is still the lender of last resort.
In the meantime, Smith was commissioned by Netball Australia to plot netball's strategic future. He looked at the Trans-Tasman Netball League's television ratings - weaker when New Zealand teams were involved - and results - a New Zealand team won the competition just once in its nine years - and recommended Australia go it alone.
The result was Super Netball, a $3.4 million per year, five-year broadcast partnership with Nine, a new naming rights sponsor in Suncorp, three new teams and a groundbreaking new pay deal for Australia's professional players. Early in its first season, the competition is drawing crowds and rating strongly nationally.
Smith characterised as "gutsy" Netball Australia's move to re-imagine its future and said it was time the ARU did the same. He warned the forthcoming SANZAAR strategic review would not have Australia's interests at its core.
"We've got across the ditch from us the most powerful rugby nation in the world, in New Zealand, and they are utilising this to their advantage to maintain that," he said.
"This is a 'now' problem, not one over which we can adopt the ostrich management style and hope it goes away."

 

[Slim 293]

So NSW Waratahs would then be essentially Sydney (excluding Western Sydney), and rest of NSW? That doesn't make much sense.

Well, no......... because the Brumbies already cover some regional areas of NSW, do it would just be the North Eastern Sydney Waratahs.