All this is doing is taking your biggest brands and reducing their reach and exposure.
This was my position for a long time that you would be crazy to remove existing brands that already have a following. If you were going down a domestic comp route which required new teams from scratch I think you would struggle to make it competitive in any reasonable time period if you didn't dissolve the Waratahs and Reds though.
The biggest thing to me though would be trying to bring in a private equity model as the overall funding mechanism for the teams and removing the direct link between state unions and professional teams. We need private funding and we need to separate the risk that the grassroots organisation dies if the pro team has a financial disaster.
In any event, it would require some careful planning.
The point is: No, he would not.
It's not 1980 any more.
There no way that the Brumbies would or should release a bloke they are paying big dollars for to go play in Brisbane (so long as the Rebels/Brumbies continue to exist, that is … once they go, we're back in the 1980s anyway) .
Rugby already has enough problems managing two-tiered player contracts. Are they now going to be three-tiered?
There is bugger-all advantage to be gained from this extra domestic player shuffle.
Rugby needs play to its strengths which is the international component that includes both test matches and transnational club matches.
It would only work if it is part of the official calendar, the players invited to take part are paid substantial match fees (no reason they wouldn't be in line with a test match) and that hopefully the timing works that it fits with helping select the Wallabies.
This is the bit that would be most similar to RL SoO. There would be no ongoing player contracts just a substantial financial reward for taking part.
Anyway, it's just an idea to work into a season where our primary competition is a domestic comp that would naturally be a weaker comp due to diluting the teams. The biggest weakness that competition would have is not giving our test players a strong enough weekly competition to play in to be ready for test rugby.