Where to for Super Rugby?

[Up the Guts]

One of the big issues starting to arise from the disbanding of the Force is the poor distribution of players across Australian Super Rugby Clubs. We now have two teams with backlines who can't attack for the life of them and the most potent attacking backline has a forward pack that is small even by club rugby standards. Meanwhile the Rebels have Wallabies on the bench and sometimes even out of their match day 23 but as two teams just thrown together haphazardly at the start of the season they seem to have no structure or game plan they can fall back on when they are down.

Of course, poor coaching and selection decisions contribute to many of these problems (e.g. not picking Quade, dropping DP) as does a general lack of quality players coming through the ranks but Hawera, Godwin, and Kurindrani are just not a flyhallf and centre combination that are ever going to inspire brilliance. I will be interested to see in the coming years whether teams attempt to pick up players that balance their selection or these imbalances persist.

 

[Rebels3]

One of the big issues starting to arise from the disbanding of the Force is the poor distribution of players across Australian Super Rugby Clubs. We now have two teams with backlines who can't attack for the life of them and the most potent attacking backline has a forward pack that is small even by club rugby standards. Meanwhile the Rebels have Wallabies on the bench and sometimes even out of their match day 23 but as two teams just thrown together haphazardly at the start of the season they seem to have no structure or game plan they can fall back on when they are down.

Of course, poor coaching and selection decisions contribute to many of these problems (e.g. not picking Quade, dropping DP) as does a general lack of quality players coming through the ranks but Hawera, Godwin, and Kurindrani are just not a flyhallf and centre combination that are ever going to inspire brilliance. I will be interested to see in the coming years whether teams attempt to pick up players that balance their selection or these imbalances persist.

I was thinking the other day, if we could move players from other squads that are either not essential or surplus to requirements to another Aus team where would i put them? I'll include Karmichael in this as i believe he should still be running around.

Tahs - Naivalu (MELB), Enever (ACT), = a solid lock so Hanigan can push out to 6, Naivalu to the wing to solve the continual rotating wing spot

Brums - Hunt (QLD), Ready (QLD) = Hunt to straighten the attack at 12, also has a passing game which could bring Kurindrani into it. Ready to either start or be bench hooker.

Reds - English (MELB), Ruru (MELB), Latu (NSW) = no decent 10s that aren't already crucial to their teams so instead an upgrade at 9, Ruru also offers that Brad Thorn toughness he likes. English to play wing/fullback where he is an upgrade on Toua or allows Daugunu to switch to the back. Latu as either starting or bench hooker

Rebels - Quade (QLD), R Smith (QLD) = Quade for obvious reasons, Smith to help a struggling scrum in tandem with Talakai for start/bench

 

[wamberal]

It is so bloody obvious that this sort of thing would improve the standard of all the teams. Okay, some might benefit a bit more than others, but, as I have repeatedly said, unless we are all prepared to work together, and make sacrifices, for the common good we deserve what will happen to us. What is already happening, in point of fact.

 

[Rebels3]

The Irish model is probably the best way forward for Aus teams.

NSW = Leinster
QLD = Munster
ACT = Ulster
VIC = Connacht

Instead we look more like the Welsh mess

 

[half]

Interesting radio interview with the owner of the Wellington Phoenix.

Recent rumours have the club being sold.

BUT BUT the interview also looks closely at the governance changes needed and the A-League becoming independent from the governing body.

Interesting from a Super Rugby viewpoint about the importance of having an independent structure.

Its long but we share many common issues. The difference they are demanding change.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WfbPFXp2b8-Pkz8D9bxMne8GunUys8ps/view

 

[flat_eric]

We actually have NZ teams in our competition. Why haven't we ever seriously considered setting a fixture between teams from both counties? Start with one fixture and build from there. At the very least you think it would be successful for games held in NZ.

 

[lou75]

Another dismal weekend of rugby ahead for Aussie supporters with Chiefs and Crusaders surely overcoming Reds and Brumbies while Rebels face off - without key players, against SA team, stormers. When will the pain end? tahs have a bye but then face four NZ teams on the trot before they can have any hope of a win - It will be another week before any Aussie team can win and that's because Reds face Sunwolves ( so might win), and rebels face brumbies a week later, so unless they draw, one will win . It's just sad the way things have worked out - if only we had a plan to improve the quality of our coaches and depth of our teams

 

[Brumby Runner]

Understand your melancholy, Lou, but just a small correction. Chiefs beat the Reds last week. This week is the turn of the Lions to feast.

 

[lou75]

Understand your melancholy, Lou, but just a small correction. Chiefs beat the Reds last week. This week is the turn of the Lions to feast.

quite right

 

[half]

Its written south of the boarder, and ignores the NRL & A-League, but this article is cutting and is all over the Fairfax press, read by sponsors and so on.

Hype yes, wrong in trend no.

Read and wept as this article tears us apart, and for maybe the first time in my life I am starting to think have we passed the point of no return.

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/is-sydney-finally-an-afl-town-20180427-p4zbzl.html

a small part of the article.

You wouldn’t call them a crowd, more a remnant; and officially, Super Rugby hasn’t yet called them a crowd. It’s scarcely possible to find an official attendance for the Waratahs-Lions match last Friday night, played simultaneously with the Swans match. What an embarrassing scheduling snafu that was.

Observers put the Waratahs-Lions attendance at around 10,000, which possibly means 8000.


Perhaps rugby’s modesty is being hidden under a figleaf. It wouldn’t need to be a big one. The headline was that the Waratahs, on the field, were nilled. Off the field, their code was also nilled. You see this kind of embarrassment at writers’ festivals: Andy Griffiths in one room, a literary novelist in the next.



Afterwards, their lines at the book-signing desks are not pretty. It’s brute commercial reality. Andy Griffiths sometimes sends patrons the other guy’s way. The AFL isn’t so generous.


Ruggageddon, then? Has Sydney finally declared itself an AFL town? I’ve got to say, as someone who grew up playing rugby, I’d never have imagined a night like this. I’ve seen future, and it is … Melbourne. And it made me, to coin Donald Trump, sad. Very, very sad.

 

[chibimatty]

Meh, usual Melbourne AFL-shill crap, of the type we get here in Perth, Half. That there's no mention the other two football codes is a big indicator of the usual AFL diatribe. It's like those old FIFA propaganda about India- "look at soccer's attendances compared to hockey, surely this means soccer is India's national game" Meanwhile, there's 90,000 at the cricket the next week...

But you're right, on it's own, the rugby figure looks pretty bad.

 

[half]

Meh, usual Melbourne AFL-shill crap, of the type we get here in Perth, Half. That there's no mention the other two football codes is a big indicator of the usual AFL diatribe. It's like those old FIFA propaganda about India- "look at soccer's attendances compared to hockey, surely this means soccer is India's national game" Meanwhile, there's 90,000 at the cricket the next week.

But you're right, on it's own, the rugby figure looks pretty bad.

AFL hypes things to the extreme. On the Central Coast [NSW] where I live the AFL player numbers have fallen below 300 players. So much so they have to play teams from the Newcastle / Hunter region in a combined competition.

Newcastle / Hunter about 634K in population the CC about 360K so lets say 1 million people.

On the Central Coast water sports are huge, surfing, sailing, swimming etc of the Football codes all have reasonable player numbers, soccer 17K, league 6k, rugby 3.5k. Newcastle similar ratio with bigger numbers.

AFL would struggle over the two regions for 1, 200 players.

Yet on the CC with less than 300 players they have control of five ovals, and because of radio networks we get AFL information constantly.

I was telling a guy this at a seminar and being from Melbourne he did not believe me.

What was hhhmmmmm funny well maybe not funny but certainly amusing was his assertion that AFL was the greatest game high on excitement and which a number of us said meh its crap. He was quite annoyed we failed to appreciate the values of AFL.

He made a mistake of challenging me why I through AFL was crap and even two days latter he had not forgiven me.

 

[chibimatty]

AFL is a game I can watch from the middle of the third quarter onwards, bit like basketball really. The back'n'forth high-scoring nature of it makes the early stages of the game a bit redundant.

Speaking of the Central Coast/Hunter/Newcastle, is there any more news on a pro-team coming from there? Have they been in touch with Twiggy's mob?

 

[half]

AFL is a game I can watch from the middle of the third quarter onwards, bit like basketball really. The back'n'forth high-scoring nature of it makes the early stages of the game a bit redundant.

Speaking of the Central Coast/Hunter/Newcastle, is there any more news on a pro-team coming from there? Have they been in touch with Twiggy's mob?

Not that I have heard, amazing we have close to 10K players and 20 clubs between us, huge local media support and we have been pissed on by RA for decades.

I may have mentioned before before the NRC kicked off they wanted people to put up 400K. Newcastle / Hunter where prepared to put up 650K per year for I think guarantees of 5 to 7 years.

The thing ARU said thanks, you team will train in Sydney, play its matches in Sydney and maybe play some preseason matches in Newcastle. They where told to F O and me thinks some of those folks will be hard to get back with the same level of support.

Pouring rain and big winds, did not stop about 20K locals watching the Jets tonight in a final. Newcastle supports Newcastle, and rugby has a very very strong base here.

Alas we seemed to have no seats in positions of rugby power.

Just look at the population of Newcastle / Hunter scrool down about half a page 634K

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Region

Central Coast around 350K .

 

[half]

Slight edit on the above

The Newcastle Hunter Rugby Union now consists of 19 clubs with 3 Divisions as well as numerous junior teams (Hunter Junior Rugby Union) and a Women’s competition.

 

[hoggy]

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/is-sydney-finally-an-afl-town-20180427-p4zbzl.html

Another day, another article. You seriously do wonder what it is going to take.

 

[Quick Hands]

Pretty much what we've been saying here.

The decline of interest in Super Rugby over the past few years is well documented. The excision of the Western Force was meant, by some logic, to stanch the bleeding, but it only seems to have opened another vein. Rather than concentrate the depth of Australian rugby by 20 per cent, the absence of the Force seems to have drained the pool from both ends.
The ludicrous Super Rugby draw, giving Australian teams the benefit of playing most of their games against each other, is fooling nobody. Rugby will presumably find some bottoming-out point.
It has too much support from the big end of town to disappear. Super Rugby, however, is fast coming to resemble the Sheffield Shield, a competition that is talked about and has some importance, but that fewer and fewer people watch.
Cricket can survive that, because of its hugely popular other formats. Can rugby? Are the Wallabies a powerful enough shop window, over the long term, to stop the code from receding into its private school ghetto, a recondite physical activity like lacrosse or polo?
It is quite possible to imagine a future where rugby is the game they play in other countries, a kind of gap-year jollity for future lawyers and bankers, but not a serious professional code in Australia. I’m sure rugby has a plan to revitalise itself, beyond its excellent start of renaming itself Rugby Australia and ordering new stationery.
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/is-sydney-finally-an-afl-town-20180427-p4zbzl.html

 

[Quick Hands]

Its written south of the boarder, and ignores the NRL & A-League, but this article is cutting and is all over the Fairfax press, read by sponsors and so on.

Hype yes, wrong in trend no.

Read and wept as this article tears us apart, and for maybe the first time in my life I am starting to think have we passed the point of no return..

Think you'll find that Malcolm Knox is from Sydney and the article is from the SMH and reprinted in The Age and other Fairfax publications.

I'm not sure that we're beyond the point of no return, but for every year that we continue on the current course (i.e. super rugby involvement and neglect of the base) will mean another 5-10 years work to get things back.

THe only thing which I can see saving us is RA bankruptcy - as this stuff isn't financially sustainable.

 

[Brumby Runner]

About time to give this thread away. Has been hijacked into a Soccer/AFL discussion. Neither has any interest at all for me.

 

[hoggy]

And another one.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=12040836