Where to for Super Rugby?

[LearningCurve]

So saturday night and no local domestic pro super rugby team to watch in prime time with tahs playing lions at 11pm which is way past my tv viewing time. Yep super rugby really is not fan friendly competition that allows you to engage week to week.

Yes, nice for the Brumbies to have a Sunday afternoon game but in the interests of getting audience share it would have been better to have had it on Saturday evening. It seems a shame that when one of the Australian teams is in SA so very late viewing time that they can't avoid scheduling an Australian derby sucking up two of the other teams into one night. If the derby had been when all Oz teams were home then they could have still ensured coverage across prime viewing on Friday and Saturday nights.

 

[liquor box]

Yes, nice for the Brumbies to have a Sunday afternoon game but in the interests of getting audience share it would have been better to have had it on Saturday evening. It seems a shame that when one of the Australian teams is in SA so very late viewing time that they can't avoid scheduling an Australian derby sucking up two of the other teams into one night. If the derby had been when all Oz teams were home then they could have still ensured coverage across prime viewing on Friday and Saturday nights.

It is poor management yo not have a 7.30 game on both Friday and Saturday nights.
At a minimum is should always be on Saturday night as this is the test night later in the season.

It is important for our better halves to never have an option for us to do anything but watch rugby on a Saturday night.

 

[Quick Hands]

It is poor management yo not have a 7.30 game on both Friday and Saturday nights.
At a minimum is should always be on Saturday night as this is the test night later in the season.

It is important for our better halves to never have an option for us to do anything but watch rugby on a Saturday night.

Having a 7.30pm game on a Saturday night on the East Coast isn't on the SANZAAR radar at all. The structure of the competition means that it's probably an impossible ask and therein lies the problem with the Super Rugby concept.

 

[hoggy]

Having a 7.30pm game on a Saturday night on the East Coast isn't on the SANZAAR radar at all. The structure of the competition means that it's probably an impossible ask and therein lies the problem with the Super Rugby concept.

Exactly, it highlights the slow death by a thousand cuts. The competition has so many inherent flaws that are just never addressed, and so we end up where we are.
But moving forward a continuation of the same means sooner or later you come to a cliff.

 

[liquor box]

Having a 7.30pm game on a Saturday night on the East Coast isn't on the SANZAAR radar at all. The structure of the competition means that it's probably an impossible ask and therein lies the problem with the Super Rugby concept.

so who decides the game times?

I think on two occasions there have been weekends without a single game in Australia that I can recall, and I may also be wrong.

Assuming there is one game in Australia every weekend then Saturday night should be the number one game and mandated by RA.

 

[wamberal]

so who decides the game times?

I think on two occasions there have been weekends without a single game in Australia that I can recall, and I may also be wrong.

Assuming there is one game in Australia every weekend then Saturday night should be the number one game and mandated by RA.

Impossible, if the participants are not all Australian teams. This is an incredibly complicated competition to schedule, that seems pretty obvious.


A Trans-Tasman competition would be simpler to schedule, of course. But that is not on the table at the moment.


A fully domestic competition would be the easiest of all to schedule. But.............

 

[Adam84]

Can we have best of both worlds?

From 2020, under the new global calendar agreement:

Feb-Jun: Super Rugby
July: Inbound Tests
Aug: Rugby Championship
Jul-Nov: NRC?
Nov: Northern Hemisphere Tests

For me, there's a glaring window of opportunity between Jul and Oct for all those Super Rugby players not in the Wallabies, and during Sep theres a fair chance of a number of Wallabies sliding back down to whatever comp fills that window.

At a minimum, club rugby is going to get all their Super Rugby players back early, for QLD/NSW players if/when the Reds/Tahs don't make the finals they can head back to the QPR/SS and play the remaining 6 rounds of the QPR/SS regular season, and then the finals. In previous years, the Super Rugby players were only finishing up with 1 round of the season to go and parachuting in for the finals.

 

[Quick Hands]

so who decides the game times?

I think on two occasions there have been weekends without a single game in Australia that I can recall, and I may also be wrong.

Assuming there is one game in Australia every weekend then Saturday night should be the number one game and mandated by RA.

SANZAAR decides everything.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

Can we have best of both worlds?

From 2020, under the new global calendar agreement:

Feb-Jun: Super Rugby
July: Inbound Tests
Aug: Rugby Championship
Jul-Nov: NRC?
Nov: Northern Hemisphere Tests

For me, there's a glaring window of opportunity between Jul and Oct for all those Super Rugby players not in the Wallabies, and during Sep theres a fair chance of a number of Wallabies sliding back down to whatever comp fills that window.

At a minimum, club rugby is going to get all their Super Rugby players back early, for QLD/NSW players if/when the Reds/Tahs don't make the finals they can head back to the QPR/SS and play the remaining 6 rounds of the QPR/SS regular season, and then the finals. In previous years, the Super Rugby players were only finishing up with 1 round of the season to go and parachuting in for the finals.

Change the NRC (whatever form it may take in the future) window to Aug-Nov and that'd fit in my opinion.

 

[Adam84]

One consideration for the NRC, is the availability of test players come November.. For Australia it depends on the size of the squads taken to Europe but it also impacts heavily on the Fijian Drua

 

[Quick Hands]

Exactly, it highlights the slow death by a thousand cuts. The competition has so many inherent flaws that are just never addressed, and so we end up where we are.
But moving forward a continuation of the same means sooner or later you come to a cliff.

Sadly, I think that what's going to happen is that Super Rugby will limp on until the broadcasters pull the plug.

We're now at the point where NSW and Qld are drawing 10,000 or less to home games. It's not sustainable, particularly in the Australian context where sports lovers have so many other choices. In the vacuum created by Super Rugby I'm now following the NRL more than I have for years. Games on Thusday, Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons, most are quite athletic and entertaining and if they aren't I can just switch off and watch something else. When there's a super rugby game on, I occasionally flick over to see what's happening and unfortunately mostly the answer is not much. Quite often everyone is standing around waiting for a TMO review or some other hold-up - and I say the following as someone who's been following rugby since childhood and it's my favoured sport - but what super rugby is dishing up is boring.

I do watch the Shute Shield if I'm home on a Saturday afternoon and the games are all entertaining and enjoyable to watch. Manly aren't on every week, but even so I know who's playing and what/where they represent, the coverage is good, the commentary is beautiful in its simplicity and it satisfies my needs in terms of watching rugby.

 

[Quick Hands]

Change the NRC (whatever form it may take in the future) window to Aug-Nov and that'd fit in my opinion.

NRC in its current format is a worse product than Super Rugby. My tip is that if it goes ahead this year, it will be the last and the fact that it will be held at the same time as RWC will mean that nobody will even know that it's gone.

 

[wamberal]

NRC in its current format is a worse product than Super Rugby. My tip is that if it goes ahead this year, it will be the last and the fact that it will be held at the same time as RWC will mean that nobody will even know that it's gone.

Just like the ARC being introduced during the lead up to the 2007 RWC.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

NRC in its current format is a worse product than Super Rugby. My tip is that if it goes ahead this year, it will be the last and the fact that it will be held at the same time as RWC will mean that nobody will even know that it's gone.

Sort of why I said whatever form it may take. I suspect it'll be either reorganised or re-launched as an expanded club championship.

 

[Adam84]

If there was a perfect solution that suited all parties we would have it by now... reality is some stakeholders need to accept options which aren’t a perfect outcome for them, but the best outcome for the collective overall. This is where Australian rugby has always struggled

 

[Rugbynutter39]

And why competing for the casual sports fan is hard for rugby where they can watch afl and nrl domestic teams on prime time zones every Friday and Saturday night. I am hoping with say western Sydney in rapid rugby along with the force might help to fill the watching void. And ideally they try to schedule home matches for those team that don’t go head to head with super rugby domestic games on at the same time.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

Obvious solution is to make existing oz super rugby teams compete in nrc along with rapid rugby teams who don’t have a domestic comp (ie hence would exclude japan or nz teams that play in super or rapid rugby). As neither super rugby or rapid rugby competitions provide enough games and especially home games. As we all know japan, nz and sa have their own strong domestic comps so not a problem for them.

Ok it mean cutting qld and NSW country but just get tahs and reds to play some games in the country like rising do

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

If there was a perfect solution that suited all parties we would have it by now. reality is some stakeholders need to accept options which aren’t a perfect outcome for them, but the best outcome for the collective overall. This is where Australian rugby has always struggled

Expanding the ACC would in time likely lead to just that. Assuming the same arrangement continues with it as with the NRC in terms of travel and accommodation this would provide the teams in the expanded ACC with the 4 or 5 extra revenue generating games a season against both local and national competition.

This could then lead to a handful of clubs becoming financially dominant to the point where establishing their own standalone competition makes more sense in terms of competition. It's unfortunate for the also runs but that's probably where it needs to go at this point. They'll still have the local district comp to compete in regardless.

 

[WorkingClassRugger]

Obvious solution is to make existing oz super rugby teams compete in nrc along with rapid rugby teams who don’t have a domestic comp (ie hence would exclude japan or no teams that may enter rapid rugby). As neither super rugby or rapid rugby competitions provide enough games and especially home games. As we all know japan, nz and sa have their own strong domestic comps so not a problem for them.

Ok it mean cutting qld and NSW country but just get tahs and reds to play some games in the country like rising do

That's certainly another option. One that makes a lot of sense as well. Newcastle has expressed interest in entering GRR. If they are serious they should be encouraged. Western Sydney would be another obviously. At least one of those two should be supported in my opinion. That way we could have the 4 Aus Super Rugby sides plus the Force, one of the two above and Fiji and Samoa involved.

 

[liquor box]

SANZAAR decides everything.

What benefit does Sanzaar get from a Sunday afternoon game? If it was a good time for a match then it would be on every week