Where to for Super Rugby?

[Highlander35]

The whole sordid thing has got a really bad smell about it! The sudden sale by Cox as well smells like one big pot of collusion with ARU as well. Thanks Clyne, Pulver et al you've effectively ruined the one team that my young fella was inspiring to play for! No amount of coin could replace that. Dogs the whole fucken lot of them.

Don't rewrite history in your passion.

ARU clearly had NFI what was going on down here.

 

[TSR]

The ARU are on a hiding to nothing, Aus rugby is screwed, they are bleeding cash, the current Super rugby format has failed and the Aus sides are the pants

Something had to change

Was killing the Force the right decision? Time will tell

But something had to change

But many of these problems have either been or their own making or inadequately addressed by the board Fatprop. If they are on a hiding to nothing, this is at least a good part of their own making.

I am personally a supporter of the NRC, and the women's 7s Olympic victory was a brief soaring boost (unfortunately we have quickly surrendered the initiative to AFL, with league gathering momentum) but apart from that what positive impact have any of the management of the game at ARU (or QRU) been a part of under the current watch.

The culling of the Force has created a trigger point for a ground swell of condemnation, but the frustration has been there for a long time.

The board members aren't coerced - they willingly sign up for this gig. It is a performance driven role and, quite frankly, they have performed terribly.

I will add that I think the problems in Australian rugby are much broader than just who is on the board. If we replace this group with another group, however well intentioned they are, without a clear intent to overhaul Australian rugby, we will just continue down the path we are on.

 

[fatprop]

Yeah,something did have to change.
How about changing so the management so the joint is professionally run?
There is a history of franchises needing bailing out, does the ARU see there is a common issue & demand to oversee how their money is spent to ensure its not repeated on a regular basis?
Does it see that many functions of each franchise could be centralised,avoiding duplication and save millions each year?
When it decided that for the health of the game does it announce a transparent process so the public can understand why the weakest franchise was chosen?

I think these guys are well aware that they are on their last legs and resumes are being updated. You can't make these tough decisions in the current structure without being well aware that you will be gone in retribution

The structure is a challenge, take too much power from the franchise and they give the franchises a free pass excuse for every problem on being "hamstrung by the ARU".

Allow them the be more entrepreneurial and you have duplication of functions and multiple approaches to the same problem.

Essentially they all have lived with a massive ARU safety net. I think they have two options:

1/ Remove the safety net, let teams fail or succeed being aware that there will be no more bailouts

2/ The ARU takes control and responsibility (they have the money) and we get a consistent approach to tactics, process and a better distribution of resources

 

[TOCC]

I don't believe that by centralising back office functions that the teams would lose their entrepreneurial ability or individualism as a club. It's not like the teams have massive marketing or development budgets to work with, they are all fairly status quo in that department and for the most part outsource anyway, with the one exception been the recent "save the Force" campaign, which was coincidentally run by RugbyWA who are no longer in control of the Force.

It's a no brainer that much of the back office operations should be consolidated across the 5 teams, they need to save money where they can whist still investing in the important areas like coaching. Retain the High Performance structure as an individual entity under the current clubs, albeit with greater cohesion with the national body.

l

 

[Joe Blow]

Yeah,something did have to change.
How about changing so the management so the joint is professionally run?
There is a history of franchises needing bailing out, does the ARU see there is a common issue & demand to oversee how their money is spent to ensure its not repeated on a regular basis?
Does it see that many functions of each franchise could be centralised,avoiding duplication and save millions each year?
When it decides to cull a team for the health of the game,does it announce a transparent process so the public can understand why the weakest franchise was chosen?

Exactly. Something should have changed a long time ago when it became apparent that the mob running rugby in Australia was not up to the task and were delivering it into the deep hole we now find ourselves in.

 

[Rebels3]

I don't believe that by centralising back office functions that the teams would lose their entrepreneurial ability or individualism as a club. It's not like the teams have massive marketing or development budgets to work with, they are all fairly status quo in that department and for the most part outsource anyway, with the one exception been the recent "save the Force" campaign, which was coincidentally run by RugbyWA who are no longer in control of the Force.

It's a no brainer that much of the back office operations should be consolidated across the 5 teams, they need to save money where they can whist still investing in the important areas like coaching. Retain the High Performance structure as an individual entity under the current clubs, albeit with greater cohesion with the national body.

l

The thing the Force did so well in recent times was hit the social media channels extremely hard. It's the cheapest and most efficient way to engage your fans. It should be a lesson for all the other franchises. The men/women behind it were superb with their ability to create rhetoric, engage the community and constantly develop content.

 

[TOCC]

The thing the Force did so well in recent times was hit the social media channels extremely hard. It's the cheapest and most efficient way to engage your fans. It should be a lesson for all the other franchises. The men/women behind it were superb with their ability to create rhetoric, engage the community and constantly develop content.

Yep, but Social media is one area of Australian Rugby where i think it should become centralised, whilst the Force did well in recent times, many of the other teams do it poorly.

At least have a marketing coordinator providing guidance and structure as to what each of the Super Rugby provinces social media managers should be outputting. It would also appear some of the provinces due to limited budgets, lack the ability to provide the content to push onto social media, another area which consolidation of back office staff could assist individual teams by providing more content.

 

[Rebels3]

I wonder if the aru employs a creative agency? My suspicion would be no, but it's something they could look at if they did centralise. I'm not sure if social media platforms under a centralized model would work for the different teams, what I'd believe all you'd end up with would be very broad content that engages the community as a whole and not the different communities individually. But I'm known to be wrong and on a daily basis at that haha

 

[TOCC]

You would still require a media manger and another for capturing the content, but everything behind the scenes including the multimedia production could be done in a centralised model.

I mean, you now have www.rugby.com.au which is acting as its own media organisation, but it doesn't get propagated down to the Super Rugby teams or distributed out. There seems to be a clear disconnect.

 

[fatprop]

Exactly. Something should have changed a long time ago when it became apparent that the mob running rugby in Australia was not up to the task and were delivering it into the deep hole we now find ourselves in.

I do think at times things have to turn to shit before there is enough inertia to make real change

Maybe they expanded too quickly as well. There is a bit around in the back story that they knew the expansion of teams may have not been viable, but like many a CEO they will still take that punt and chew like hell.

although I think if they never tried, they would now be being criticised for being too conservative as well

 

[wamberal]

We will probably never know the full story about the expansion, and anyway, no doubt the several parties would have their own unique versions.


It is not a black and white world, unfortunately, there are lots of shades of grey, particularly when people have to deal with a rapidly changing media landscape, allied to the long term demographic and other changes in Australia in particular.


I remember going to SS Grand Finals at the SFS in the nineties, the crowds were bigger than the Tahs draw now.


That is a huge drop in popularity for the game, both at the club and the elite level. Drastic situations usually need drastic solutions, not to mention that those solutions will be painful.


Will the game in Australia and all its stakeholders decide that it is better to stick together, and try to make something bigger out of the current rubble? Or will the various elements continue back-biting and fighting for their own parochial little interests?


There is no magic bullet, just some unpleasant medicine, we can drink it quickly, or slowly.

 

[Brumby Runner]

I say full marks for the ARU trying the five franchises but, if as seems likely now, they had misgivings about the financial viability back then, they should have been taking steps to limit the drain on their finances rather than just seemingly being a bottomless pit for the franchises to dip into whenever they needed. The aims of expanding to a national footprint and to enlarge the opportunities for players as well as enlarge the player pool in Australia are all worthy, but the onus should have been on ensuring the whole organisation remained viable. It seems to me the ARU failed in that regard.

There were mitigating circumstances like SANZAAR wanting to expand to include Argentina and Japan, and the wholly unworkable conference system adopted to appease the Saffas, but the ARU had the option of vetoing any of those decisions had they had the foresight or balls to do so.

Now the Force have had to be discarded because of the ARU's failings regarding overall financial viability of the Aus franchises and their apparent capitulation to the desires of the other SANZAR partners a couple of years ago.

 

[Omar Comin']

Did Twiggy offer to help in 2015?

It's irrelevant, the fact is he offered it now. I've seen a lot of people bemoan the fact Australian rugby doesn't have a Frank Lowy type willing to get involved. Now we have someone equally wealthy willing to put considerable money into the sport without gaining any control whatsoever and the ARU has basically said nah. Sure, it would have been great if he'd put his hand up earlier, but the fact is he put it up before a decision had been made.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

It's irrelevant, the fact is he offered it now. I've seen a lot of people bemoan the fact Australian rugby doesn't have a Frank Lowy type willing to get involved. Now we have someone equally wealthy willing to put considerable money into the sport without gaining any control whatsoever and the ARU has basically said nah. Sure, it would have been great if he'd put his hand up earlier, but the fact is he put it up before a decision had been made.

Im not sure its irrelevant - but I just wanted to know the answer

 

[Omar Comin']

Im not sure its irrelevant - but I just wanted to know the answer

I don't know, I doubt it. But in 2015 no one had any reason to believe the Force's existence was under threat (because the ARU continually claimed strong support for maintaining 5 teams) so I don't know why he would have felt any need to.

 

[TOCC]

Imagine this...

It's 2014 and SARU are discussing their long term future, one where they see the riches of Europe eclipsing the competitive benefit of playing in Super Rugby.. They ask themselves, how do we approach this, how do we join Europe Rugby.

One person at SARU proposes they push for an expansion of the Super Rugby tournament, get SANZAAR to fund the expansion. If the expansion works then great, but if it doesn't then SARU could volunteer to take a hit and cut one of their teams, but instead of cutting that team they offer it to the Pro12, they use it to test the water and see if the broadcasters and fans like the concept.

In 2019 when the current SANZAAR broadcast deal is up, if the Pro12 concept hasn't worked then no harm done, they still look like a good guy to their SANZAAR partners because they volunteered to cut one of their teams. But if it has worked, if the ratings and crowds support the concept, then they now have a tangible and quantifiable grounds to negotiate with European Unions and broadcasters on to join those leagues. Alternatively, the threat to leave SANZAAR and the persuasion this holds allows them even more control of the SANZAAR model. Australia meanwhile, now offers less content to the model, thus gets offered a lesser proportion of the overall broadcast deal.

 

[BLR]

Im not sure its irrelevant - but I just wanted to know the answer

Twiggy has been helping financially behind the scenes the entire time through Future Force & sponsorship.

If you remember the media around 2015 ARU trumpeted the centralisation as something that would be done for all the franchises and the Alliance was quite the boon for the Force going forward as we can finally get a bit of love from the ARU. Personally I believe when the governing body signs a contract they would stick by it and the ARU hadn't yet turned into the horrible snakes they are at the moment.

Don't rewrite history in your passion.

ARU clearly had NFI what was going on down here.

Not clearly, there has been a few media reports claiming to have something to do with it. I suppose let's see what happens.

 

[Inside Shoulder]

Twiggy has been helping financially behind the scenes the entire time through Future Force & sponsorship.

Good.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

Yes but Super Rugby is severely fucked and many of us on here are hoping something like the NRC could morph into a national domestic competition many of us crave (if NZ continues to not want to play ball in Trans Tasman comp) and hence important at least Perth Spirit still part of NRC.

Just spoken with my mates about going to Shute shield final. Use to go to tahs, wallabies and nrc games with them but we have now decided time to get back to grassroots which is now pirates in Shute shield and nrc.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[No4918]

I do think at times things have to turn to shit before there is enough inertia to make real change

Maybe they expanded too quickly as well. There is a bit around in the back story that they knew the expansion of teams may have not been viable, but like many a CEO they will still take that punt and chew like hell.

although I think if they never tried, they would now be being criticised for being too conservative as well

The back story that has been spread by the same party claiming finances were the issue? After claiming we weren't successful enough with 5 teams and putting out a shiny line graph proving so? The same party that has had a massive hole blown in the finance story by an ex-ARU board member?