Where to for Super Rugby?

[Dismal Pillock]

Actually Dismal its your bloody fault as oz players are logging in here to see what latest crazy graphic you will post on here rather than prepping for the game.

If so..... then my work here has only just begun.

 

[Joe King]

So I'm still thinking that any Super Rugby model needs to fit within a max 18 week window between late Feb and July tests, including byes and finals.

Can anyone correct me on this? This would rule out quite a few good ideas presented on here.

 

[Dan54]

That's like going to the crease with a bat that hasn't been knocked in.

Short-term loan players that aren't seasoned with the team means you go backwards before improving cohesion. But you're gone after two games when it's a five round contest.

A better idea -- although I don't advocate it -- would be to have one side in there, just like Fiji. Having a Rennie-coached oz ensemble touring their way through Aotearoa could tune up and start to build WB cohesion early, towards the tests.

Still although you not advocating it, still it's another idea that can be considered.

 

[Dan54]

And seems Thorn wants full comp, among other comments
https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby...rets-gulf-after-reds-rout-in-kiwi-clean-sweep

 

[kiap]

Thorn should concentrate on coaching. Been letting it all hang out for the last month. 1 from 4 is below par for his team there and, in all honesty, they didn't deserve the 1.

 

[wamberal]

Thorn should concentrate on coaching. Been letting it all hang out for the last month. 1 from 4 is below par for his team there and, in all honesty, they didn't deserve the 1.

Err, would you mind telling him? I'm tied up at the moment.

 

[Joe King]

And seems Thorn wants full comp, among other comments
https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby...rets-gulf-after-reds-rout-in-kiwi-clean-sweep

Not saying Thorn's wrong about the Australian teams improving if it was a full TT, but how much has Super Rugby helped Wallabies since about 2005 when it started to expand?

And even though an Australian team won Super Rugby in 2011 and 2014, it could not stop its decline.

So any talk of the Australian teams improving is a false hope. We simply don't have the depth for 5 teams. One team improves, another declines.

We do need to play the NZ teams, but it can't be for a full season unless the depth issue can be properly addressed.

I'm not having a go at you, Dan. I'm just saying it's not an easy, simple decision to say a full TT is the best way forward.

 

[kiap]

Err, would you mind telling him? I'm tied up at the moment.

I'm happy to be ko'd John Smit stylee. Some things just have to be said.......

Sort yourself out, Thorn. Yeah, you heard me!

 

[Dan54]

Not saying Thorn's wrong about the Australian teams improving if it was a full TT, but how much has Super Rugby helped Wallabies since about 2005 when it started to expand?

And even though an Australian team won Super Rugby in 2011 and 2014, it could not stop its decline.

So any talk of the Australian teams improving is a false hope. We simply don't have the depth for 5 teams. One team improves, another declines.

We do need to play the NZ teams, but it can't be for a full season unless the depth issue can be properly addressed.

I'm not having a go at you, Dan. I'm just saying it's not an easy, simple decision to say a full TT is the best way forward.

Mate, I never think anyone a go at me (even when they do) and I understand what you saying, and the I even understand you feeling that it started to expand it maybe hasn't helped Wallabies, think that was what the likes of Stephen Hoiles and that were getting at wanting to reduce to 3 teams a year or so back, that was just for Wallabies etc. And it no good and going back and saying RA ballsed it up by getting in the other teams, as it is all history. But I pretty sure what is being suggested at moment is not going to help Wallabies either, playing mostly Aus teams with your premier players not getting experience of playing other styles won't help.

 

[hifflepiff]

We need to stop thinking about Super Rugby exclusively as a feeder to the Wallabies and start looking at how it can stand on its own two feet as a commercial entertainment product in this country.

Super Rugby AU was an entertaining product that captured casual sports fans attention. Conversly, unless you're a Kiwi expat, there has been nothing entertaining about Trans Tasman. That's a death sentence for public engagement in Australia's congested media environment

And as I've said before, getting creamed by the Kiwi teams isn't going to make us any better. It hasn't worked for 20 years and it isn't going to start working now.

The only way to improve the Wallabies is to get more people watching Rugby and by extension more kids playing. More kids playing means a larger talent pool. A larger talent pool means better players. Better players means better Wallabies.

 

[drewprint]

I generally stay clear of this hot mess of a thread, but the future model of AU rugby may yet be dictated by simple economics of the TT numbers. If, through a series of NZ pastings, game attendance and TV viewership is down on what was achieved in SuperAu, it may just force the Australian administrators hand and a domestic route is pursued. I’m not saying this is what I want - I actually don’t know what I want and what the best avenue is - but it may be a commercial reality.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

I generally stay clear of this hot mess of a thread, but the future model of AU rugby may yet be dictated by simple economics of the TT numbers. If, through a series of NZ pastings, game attendance and TV viewership is down on what was achieved in SuperAu, it may just force the Australian administrators hand and a domestic route is pursued. I’m not saying this is what I want - I actually don’t know what I want and what the best avenue is - but it may be a commercial reality.

Yeh I am starting to fast forward through more games in Round 2 already.....one sided contests are just boring....and be interesting to see ratings trends as TT goes on...but indeed commercial reality may well and should force the hand. I just want to watch good quality rugby involving oz teams...and yeh super rugby Au was good enough quality for me. It only becomes a problem when oz teams play kiwi teams who are higher quality so we see one sided contests and we get back to what do we do in views of these Gaps at TT level as oz teams work for domestic product but not for TT product as it currently is designed. Is what it is and nothing going to be resolved for this TT season, but RA has some interesting decisions to make in consultation with their broadcasters and other key stakeholders including NZRU. At least they are going to have some evidence to consider on the basis of 2 seasons of rugby AU and one short form TT season competition to help make more informed decisions before lock us into decisions that could make or break oz rugby's future. I just want what is going to work to grow our game, attract fans and provide good engaging contests involving oz teams....I don't think my interests are that different to the average oz footy fan which is key market trying to engage.

 

[KOB1987]

Domestic it is:
Sydney
Western Sydney and/or
Hunter (country)
Brisbane
SEQ (country)
Cambra
Melbourne
Perth
Drua

Rep teams can challenge NZ provinces like they used to back in the bad old days. Worked then.

 

[Rugbynutter39]

Domestic it is:
Sydney
Western Sydney and/or
Hunter (country)
Brisbane
SEQ (country)
Cambra
Melbourne
Perth
Drua

Rep teams can challenge NZ provinces like they used to back in the bad old days. Worked then.

Yeh per other thread I think this is way or reconciling depth issue whilst also giving our top players exposure to kiwi teams but in regional rep teams that are competitive against superior kiwi teams. As per other thread where discussed this nsw, qld and combined states rep teams. And maybe rest of players then play with best club players in another nrc style competition. Given logistic of rep teams and players based away from home it would replace the 6 week all in TT competition being played now (ie our 3 rep teams instead join this competition).

 

[Joe King]

I generally stay clear of this hot mess of a thread, but the future model of AU rugby may yet be dictated by simple economics of the TT numbers. If, through a series of NZ pastings, game attendance and TV viewership is down on what was achieved in SuperAu, it may just force the Australian administrators hand and a domestic route is pursued. I’m not saying this is what I want - I actually don’t know what I want and what the best avenue is - but it may be a commercial reality.

Yep, or they might do something radical to increase the depth of our 5.

 

[hifflepiff]

Domestic it is:
Sydney
Western Sydney and/or
Hunter (country)
Brisbane
SEQ (country)
Cambra
Melbourne
Perth
Drua

Rep teams can challenge NZ provinces like they used to back in the bad old days. Worked then.

I think having the top 3 Aus teams play the top 3 Kiwi teams in a knockout competition is the best going forward for a post-season comp.

(a) It keeps the post season short and sharp whilst still ensuring that it eventful. Every game being a knockout would make for great television and avoids Aussie teams getting pasted week after week.

(b) You can easily incorporate The top 3 Japanese teams or whoever else for larger international broadcast dollars without affecting domestic rugby.

(c) it also makes the domestic season even more meaningful. Teams aren't just playing for a place in the domestic finals, but also for a place in the Asia-Pacific Champions Cup (or whatever it would end up getting called)

(d) Its more likely that Australian teams can make the final more often in this format as they would only have to win a few games rather than a whole season.

That said, I broadly like the domestic structure you've proposed. Keep the current 5 teams + the Drua, a Western Sydney and a Gold Coast/North Queensland team and we've got a pretty solid 8 team comp (the latter two would obviously be privately funded/owned, maybe we could give that Aussie Gilchrist bloke that owns a couple teams in the MLR a call).

 

[hoggy]

I think having the top 3 Aus teams play the top 3 Kiwi teams in a knockout competition is the best going forward for a post-season comp.

(a) It keeps the post season short and sharp whilst still ensuring that it eventful. Every game being a knockout would make for great television and avoids Aussie teams getting pasted week after week.

(b) You can easily incorporate The top 3 Japanese teams or whoever else for larger international broadcast dollars without affecting domestic rugby.

(c) it also makes the domestic season even more meaningful. Teams aren't just playing for a place in the domestic finals, but also for a place in the Asia-Pacific Champions Cup (or whatever it would end up getting called)

(d) Its more likely that Australian teams can make the final more often in this format as they would only have to win a few games rather than a whole season.

That said, I broadly like the domestic structure you've proposed. Keep the current 5 teams + the Drua, a Western Sydney and a Gold Coast/North Queensland team and we've got a pretty solid 8 team comp (the latter two would obviously be privately funded/owned, maybe we could give that Aussie Gilchrist bloke that owns a couple teams in the MLR a call).

Would be nice hifflepiff, but geez there's a lot of ifs in that set-up.

(a) How do you make a short season financial
(b) What do you do with the other 5 teams who don't make the cut.
(c) Yes, good point
(d) Not sure how that works, its a 9 team comp. the payoff is being in the top 3

I like the idea of 3 extra teams, but it has to be funded and we also need the players, also if NZ keep there current structure, okay how do you reckon the Hunter (country) will go against the Crusaders.

Don't get me wrong I support a domestic structure, in fact I'll go as far as saying a full TT will be the death knell of the game here.

But there are some serious logistics to be faced with some of the structures being suggested.

 

[Joe King]

Long post, sorry. But would rather get people's feedback on here than another platform.

This assumes we only have 18 weeks or so between late February and the July Inbound Tests…

If we're serious about involving the Japanese teams, then here is a different sort of model that might be a way forward, and suit the preferences of both Australian and NZ, as well as the broadcasters. It is not a new model, but one based upon the highly successful European Rugby Championship.*

It involves having separate domestic comps with a champions league. But instead of having the champions league played after the domestic season, it would run throughout the domestic season and be played on designated weekends. I'll come back to what this structure looks like later.

But basically, the champions league would be divided into three divisions: Cup, Shield, and Plate (for want of better names).

In the Cup division you would have the top 2 teams from Super Rugby AU, top 2 from Super Rugby Ao, and top 2 Japanese teams. In the Shield division you would have the next 2 best teams (3rd and 4th) from each domestic comp, and in the Plate division you would have teams placed 5th and 6th from each domestic comp.**

Within each division, you would play everyone NOT from your own domestic comp once for 4 games + 1 bye each + a final = 6 weeks total. And you end up with a Cup, Shield, and Plate winner.

I’ll explain why the byes are important further below. But here is an example of what the format for the Cup division would look like based on this year's results:

Round 1 (H v A)
Japan 1 v Reds
Brumbies v Chiefs
Japan 2 v Crusaders

Round 2 (H v A)
Brumbies v Japan 1
Chiefs v Japan 2
Byes: Crusaders and Reds

Round 3 (H v A)
Reds v Japan 2
Crusaders v Brumbies
Byes: Chiefs and Japan 1

Round 4 (H v A)
Chiefs v Reds
Crusaders v Japan 1
Byes: Brumbies and Japan 2

Round 5 (H v A)
Reds v Crusaders
Japan 1 v Chiefs
Japan 2 v Brumbies

Round 6 (H v A)
Final (1st v 2nd).


* The European Champions Cup is actually only played over 9 weekends spread throughout the English Premiership, Top 14, and Pro 14. There is a second division for all the teams that don’t qualify for it.

** Side note: rankings for the champions league are based on the previous year's domestic comps. If a team wants to move up into a higher division of the champions league, they need to improve their position in their respective domestic competition.

—————————————————————

Now if Super Rugby AU and Super Rugby Ao are played as a home and away double round robin with six teams each, including finals, you would need 12 weeks. No byes are needed because they would be included in the champions league (see below).

I’m not entirely sure how Japan plans to structure their domestic comp. However, for Australia and NZ: 12 weeks for their domestic comp + 7 weeks for the champions league = 18 weeks. A perfect fit.

Now, as I said above, instead of playing the champions league after the domestic comps, you would follow the European model and play the champions league on designated weekends during the domestic comps. So for example:

Weeks 1-2: domestic comps in each country
Week 3: champions league round 1
Weeks 4-5: domestic comps in each country
Week 6: champions league round 2 (byes in each division)
Weeks 7-8: domestic comps in each country
Week 9: champions league round 3 (byes in each division)
Weeks 10-11: domestic comps in each country
Week 12: champions league round 4 (byes in each division)
Weeks 13-14: domestic comps in each country
Week 15: champions league round 5

Weeks 16-17: finals of domestic comps in each country
Week 18: final of each division of champions league: Cup, Shield, and Plate


With this model, every team from Super Rugby AU and Super Rugby Ao is involved in their domestic comp and the champions league at some level. And every team from Super Rugby AU and Super Rugby Ao gets a minimum of 7 home games each year.

The byes are only during the champions league so that Australia and NZ can each have three games across each weekend of their respective domestic competitions. And having byes for two teams in each division of the champions league on certain weekends would still provide six games over those particular weekends. This is good for the broadcasters.

So we get a full domestic comp in each country (yay for Super Rugby AU!), but for those who felt a six team domestic comp would get a little stale, this structure totally takes care of that. And for any Kiwis who were worried about the intensity of Super Rugby Ao and potential player injuries, this structure gives the NZ teams plenty of 'breaks' throughout with games against the 'weaker' Australian and Japanese teams. And finally, I think it would be favourable with the broadcasters and private investors, especially with the Japanese teams involved.

Next step: invite Japan to be part of the Rugby Championship.

Side note: if for some reason the Japanese teams are not involved (at least initially), it would still work just as well for Australia and NZ. Only difference would be, in each division of the champions league, you would play the other teams NOT from your own domestic comp twice, home and away, for the same amount of games.

——————————————————-

One of the drawbacks of this model might be that for any given Australia team, they would only play two of the NZ teams rather than all 5 (or 6 including M Pasifika). The same might be said for any given NZ team playing only two Australian teams. At the same time, however, this structure keeps the the best NZ teams only playing the best Australian teams, and the lower Australian teams only playing the lower NZ teams. This helps to keep the games more competitive and prevent blowout scores (hopefully!). This would be even more important for the Japanese teams involved, if they are to be competitive.

 

[Rebels3]

Aus teams need around 7-8 home games a year to at a minimum break even, so will need around 16 games to make money in the modern environment. I like the idea of other comps and different tiers

 

[hifflepiff]

Would be nice hifflepiff, but geez there's a lot of ifs in that set-up.

(a) How do you make a short season financial
(b) What do you do with the other 5 teams who don't make the cut.
(c) Yes, good point
(d) Not sure how that works, its a 9 team comp. the payoff is being in the top 3

I like the idea of 3 extra teams, but it has to be funded and we also need the players, also if NZ keep there current structure, okay how do you reckon the Hunter (country) will go against the Crusaders.

Don't get me wrong I support a domestic structure, in fact I'll go as far as saying a full TT will be the death knell of the game here.

But there are some serious logistics to be faced with some of the structures being suggested.

All good points Hoggy.

(a) I'd wager this structure would do quite well in terms of viewership as every game has meaning. The current TT structure has a lot of fat where its basically just another regular season with a lot of pointless games that have no place in a post-season comp. By having every game be a knockout, you could make each game much more of an 'event' which would garner more viewership.

(b) I'd be open to having them play in an equivalent comp with the bottom 2 NZ teams + top 6-4 Japanese teams or whatever (ala Europa league or Challenge Cup)

(d) Its unfortunately hard to draw up brackets at this present moment. But if we were just going with Trans Tasman you could have e.g

Rd 1a
Aus 3 v NZ 2

Rd 1b
NZ3 v Aus 2

Rd 2a
Aus 1 v Rd 1b Winner

Rd 2b
NZ1 v Rd 1a Winner

Rd3 (Final)
Rd 2a winner v Rd 2b Winner

I admit this becomes more complex with the introduction of the Japanese Teams (you may have to play around with numbers, maybe only 2 Japanese teams?), but you could have:

Japan 1 v NZ 3
NZ 1 v Aus 3
Aus 1 v Japan 2
NZ 2 v Aus 2

Or something in that area, this is all very quick back of the envelope stuff.

I admit these logistics may be somewhat difficult, but they're not insurmountable. What I've proposed is broadly in keeping with how most other sports do their champions style structures (just lacking a group stage).

But to be honest, at the end of the day I don't really care what the post-season looks like so long as we make a functioning and engaging domestic season our focus. Thats our real money maker long term.

[Edit] I'd also be open to Joe Kings structure.