Mate, the Force can't even flog Panasonic and the Fiji Warriors XV. The Force would struggle in the Mitre 10 Cup Premiership. I've got nothing against Fiji being in the competition at all. The Drua are made up of local product and I doubt the Force will flog them either. You can work from that and keep the competition competitive.
Nobody with any sense in WA wants a competition where the Force flog everyone; they want a pro-team for the locally-developed players to aspire to play for; a competition that is exciting and open; a match-day experience that is second-to-none, better than any we had in Super Rugby and a safer match-day experience for families at the stadium than what we had when the Kiwi Super sides came to town.
Right. One or two big name foreigners in a team may bring in the crowds, but you're going to have to recruit a majority of foreigners in your squad to compete with a fully Mitre 10 Cup Premiership quality team. And once you start doing that, it's not long before the locals start to become distant from a team that doesn't really represent them; you end up with Paris St Germain rugby league all over again.
Keeping New Zealand's "Mitre 10 Premiership All-Stars" out of the competition means that the Force and Western Sydney teams can recruit a team to match the competition (as we arguably have done now) without one team causing a ruinous and expensive recruitment race. That money can then be put into development and also the media presentation of the competition as a whole.
The Kiwis have an ace up their sleeve: under the current format, Super Rugby only permits 4 of their 5 teams to make the finals, no matter how good the fifth Kiwi team is. Regardless of how bad they get, Auckland will never be cut from the competition as they are NZ's biggest city with NZ's biggest stadium. Under the guise of "Mitre 10 Premiership All-Stars," reserve squad players can easily be siphoned away from the Blues (or any other franchise) and included in the Kiwi WSR team without fear that Auckland's Blues will be cut from Super Rugby for bad performances. What better way to put themselves into a strong negotiating position in a new competition, than by dominating said competition? And with the split fan-base in Western Sydney and Perth, they can point to the larger crowds with their visits and say "See? We're such a big drawcard."
Twiggy's mob are going to get themselves into the same trouble as Super Rugby has before them.
Snowy's right. People need to understand, Perth is in a unique situation. (Though comparable to that in Melbourne.) New Zealanders are a major part of the lifeblood of both rugby codes here, a much higher percentage of our rugby community than in the Sydney/Brisbane heartlands. They have contributed tremendously to WA rugby and it's their children who make up a large chunk of our rugby future, guys like Zack Holmes, Curtis Rona, Chance Peni, Kane Koteka being examples. But as attendances have shown, if they have the opportunity to support a Kiwi side who come to town a couple of times a year to flog the local "Australian" team, than a very significant number of them will do so -and will not support a local team- nor raise their kids to support that local team. They don't see it as their local side, they see it as a substitute Bledisloe Cup; an opportunity to come out and support "New Zealand" no matter what part of it they're from, against the hated Aussie convict duckhidz.
FFS, even people in Southland jerseys come out to cheer on the JAFA's against the Force.
Now I shouldn't have to say this, but I am not saying it's all New Zealanders; but it is such a significant number, (maybe 30-40%?) that you can see it confirmed in the crowd figures (which double) for both rugby and rugby league fixtures in Perth. Visits by the New Zealand teams bring the Kiwis out once or twice a year. These are local players/fans (and their kids) who should be turning up for the Force games every week. And if they were the only option in town, they'd have to turn up or see no pro-rugby at all; but more importantly, their kids would probably make them turn up, as they have been following their local team since youngsters at RugbyWA's junior clubs.
The argument that "if the Force want Perth Kiwi fans to support them, maybe the Force should just beat them" has been disproved by the earlier attendances for the visits of the Highlanders and the Chiefs. The Force have a winning record against the Highlanders, it is no coincidence that the Highlanders were the lowest crowd-drawing team from New Zealand. It is only after the re-allocation of provinces to the Chiefs region and the subsequent premierships to both they and the Highlanders, that crowd sizes started to match those of the Crusaders. When given the option to watch a New Zealand team possibly lose to the Force; local Kiwis stayed away and waited until the Crusaders or Blues visit later in the season.
After 13 years in Super Rugby and then again this year against the Crusaders in WSR, seeing young kids in the crowd with Aussie accents wearing different NZ team jerseys and booing the Force -while their parents look on in gleeful approval- is heartbreaking. I just hope it's not the "same shit, different bucket" for the next 13 years. And it's going to be as bad, if not worse for the Western Sydney team.
And bear in mind too, the Crusaders game attendance was only in fourth place behind the Fiji, Tonga and Panasonic games. Plus, there was also only 240 more people at the Crusaders game than the Hong Kong Dragons game; so that puts paid to New Zealand teams being such a big draw. The All Blacks are a great draw, but if they're not "Brand All Blacks" then nobody around the rugby world is salivating at the thought of a visit from Manuwatu or the Highlanders. (No disrespect to those teams by the way)
Yeah, I get the feeling New Zealand were going to veto it at World Rugby level. They have to get in on this competition just in case Super Rugby finishes up and they knew that they would be losing players to this competition. Also, they would have lost New Zealand players of Polynesian and Melanesian heritage to the Drua and Western Sydney; who probably would have then been selected on heritage by their respective national teams. This is not the first time they've vetoed an Australian initiative which would benefit the Islands; they blocked the Super 8's competition years ago which would have included Pacific National XVs against the Australian Super provinces and Japan.
That game was one of the best games I've attended ever! It goes to show, you don't need the best test-match footballers in the world to have a skilful, adventurous, exciting game; Craven Week and the Japan Top-League show us that every single year. Hell, even this year's NRC has had some fantastic running-rugby tries. WSR can take heart from these competitions and it also shows that those sort of games, that type of product, can bring the crowds in; even without those players.
