There are two general schools of thought here and many valid arguments for each school. Neither opinion can be said to be correct:
1. There is not enough depth for a 5th team especially props; consolidate and wait until Oz teams rise up the ladder; Queensland have still not recovered from the advent of the Force; the good players will be revealed anyway; the quality of the tournament will not be depreciated; there will be no additional costs; Melbourne was not good for league if you're thinking of going there.
2. Go for it anyway as the chance to get the 5th team may not come back for a while; 25% more professional players will get onto the park every season and for a longer period than under S14 and some will surprise; a few more coaching jobs for Aussies; stops some Oz players going overseas; stops some schoolboys going to league; the 5th team will be self-funding by a share of the increased TV revenue; spreads the gospel in the case of Melbourne; sponsors an for international game like rugby are in Melbourne; makes the demise of the ARC less significant because it partially achieves some of the objectives; more local Oz derbies; a longer professional season to put in front of sporting consumers.
That's just off the top of my head and with no comprehensive reading of the posts above. There are many more arguments for both schools of thought and some of the arguments listed, or not listed, carry more weight than others.
About 5-6 years ago on the older version of the other forum, the merit of having a 4th Oz Super team was mooted. Kiwis were prancing around in their preciousness objecting to my stance that we would take the 4th team because it would be good for Oz rugby.
When they said that we neither had the depth, nor deserved it from results, I agreed with them - and when they said we should have an NPC type competition first and that they didn't want to be involved in dragging Oz rugby up, I both agreed with them and said I didn't blame them, but I would still take the 4th Oz team.
Because the Kiwis were ropeable does not prove that having the Force team was a good thing for Oz rugby; they get ropeable over a lot of things. But has the Force team been of benefit to us?
Let us suppose that most of us think it has been of benefit; does it follow that having a 5th team will also be of benefit?
No it doesn't. People will point out that there is such a thing as what economists call: the Law of Diminishing Returns. In their language: units of output are produced by adding units of input - the units of output increases in size at first, but eventually, even though total output keeps on increasing, the size of each unit of output levels out and then it diminishes.
In rugby language: opponents of the 5th team Oz Super team will argue that with getting the Force team in we came to the levelling out point and that we don't really have enough inputs - players, coaches and money, to shovel into the rugby boilers and that the output will get less and less for every bit of inferior input we chuck in.
Proponents of the 5th team will say: so what? The results of chucking additional players, coaches and money may see Oz points on the Super ladder decrease for a while, (the size of the individual outputs getting smaller), but the total output for Oz rugby (20% more players, longer season, yarda, yarda) will actually increase, albeit in smaller chunks every year than it has before.
I'm of the 2nd school of thought even though I agree with many of the arguments against it. What persuades me from getting off the fence and sliding the other way include:
? Serendipity: the rise of a few star players every now and then that would not have been discovered otherwise but if a 5th team had arrived. This may be because they would not offer themselves for a professional sporting career, at least in our code of rugby, with so narrow a pathway as 4 professional teams, or because their chances to shine, and to make mistakes and improve, would be limited behind established players in one of the 4 teams.
? Migration of players to other teams. When you look at the Waratahs team on a typical game day this year you can have people like: Freier, Kepu, Baxter, Beau Robinson, Palmer, Mafi, Halangahu, Mowen, Sheehan, Tahu, Jacobs and Valentine not starting the game but good enough to start in Super rugby. Other teams have such players too: at least in a few positions.
Some of them may not be world beaters; not all of them would like to move cities and most teams would like to keep them - but I would be surprised if a total of 10 players could not be acquired from the existing 4 teams if they thought they could get a start. Chuck in a few players from overseas including a couple of Aussies returning, fellows leaving school in the next 2 years and Academy players that don't get promoted and you can get a team on the field that could finish above last place and start a rise upward.
? Stopping future players going overseas. Just talking about one position: flyhalf - in the last few weeks of watching European rugby I have seen 3 Aussies on a regular basis (and there's a lot more of them): Brock James, Chris Malone and Paul Warwick starting in games of the French Top14, English Guinness Premiership and Celtic Magners League respectively.
The merits of these players are unimportant; what is important is that they left Oz - two couldn't get into Super rugby and one couldn't get a starting spot. Money may have been a factor but you can bet there are a few flyhalves over there that would never have left had there been a 5th Super team then - and some, even a 4th team.
In the next few years flyhalves A and B will go overseas because they can't get a start in Oz pro rugby, or even a squad place in one of the 4 Super teams. No, I don't know their names either, but we know they will go. If they stay they could be starting eventually and not necessarily for the 5th team, because players move around - but we would have 5 valid starting players instead of 4.
Go through all the positions of players playing in the NH or rugby league, take a portion of them who would never have gone with a 4th or 5th team here, and you can imagine that manning 5 squads with players becomes less critical year by year. 5 years after the 5th Super team comes on board there will be 2 Oz teams that struggle every year, but by and large the rationale for the 5th team will have been satifisied, or near enough.
Will the 5th team have troubles? Damn right. Will the results of the present 4 teams be affected? Damn right. Should we wait 2 years to the start of a notional 5th team plus my notional 5 years to satisfy the rationale = 7 years, and then put our hands up for a 5th team?
Hell, no. Benefits will come to Oz rugby in the transition and the chance may never be offered again.
But I digress. I'm drivelling now - and not for the first time. I'm voting for the 5th team with no assertion that I am right, but with hope in my heart that I am.
PS:
And I saw the most recent player to go overseas, Sydney Uni centre Lachlan Mitchell, starting for Wasps on the weekend, as fullback and going OK too. He has never been in a Super squad either.
