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Perhaps New Zealand could legitimately consider even a 6 team domestic competition. Home and away for 10 games per team is only 1 less than Super 12 was. If they don't want to mess too much with their current balance of teams the 6th side could be made up of say 50% Pacific Islanders. Add on the...

Not all viewers are equally valuable to advertisers and therefore broadcasters. The unfortunate reality is that South Africa is a poor country, while Australia and New Zealand are wealthy. Australia's GDP per capita in US dollars is $57k, New Zealand $42k and South Africa $6.4k. I doubt the...

This is a key point. Surely it would be easier for the Australian teams to sign a handful of PI players each (thus strengthening our squads) than to fund a whole new PI team. Add some Argentinians and Australia could hope to field 5 teams competitive with the NZ teams.

If NZ do play hardball or decide to go their own way it will be interesting to see what sort of private investment interest there is in Australia in funding new teams or a new Australian professional competition. I think an 8 team competition with our players plus a decent number of...

But there's not that many spots available for Argentinians in the top European leagues. They're non Kolpak. Argentina has as many registered rugby players as Australia does yet many less professional players. There just isn't enough opportunities for them. Given the Australian season is shorter...

I don't think this is true. I don't think the Jaguares players are very highly paid for example. They'll no longer have a high quality competition to play in that aligns with the Rugby Championship season, so perhaps there is an opportunity to partner with the UAR and have half of those guys or...

The solution to making 5 Australian teams competitive is to partner with Argentina and the PI's to help fill those squads. Don't think of it as 5 Kiwi teams and 5 Australian teams, think of it as 5 Kiwi teams plus 5 Australian/Fijian/Tongan/Samoan/Argentinian teams that happen to be based in...

Which international markets have ever paid a significant amount for Super Rugby outside of the SANZAAR countries? Is it just the UK? And my understanding was that was really just for the last deal due to a bidding war, and they were unlikely to pay the same amount next time. Surely the...

There would be when you're comparing older players, but less so with the younger players. And even if you just focused on the Argentinians who have been part of the Jaguares set up in the last couple of years (and perhaps recent u20's graduates), plenty of those guys will not get European...

The point is that there's just not enough well paid positions in Europe for non-European players, or in Japan for non-Japanese players. Right now the 50th or 60th best Australian rugby player is likely to be a veteran professional on good money (well above the median Australian income). The 50th...

I think a lot of the best international players available would not be kiwis (unless the NZRU relent on opening up All Blacks eligibility to players based in Australia). Think of Argentina. They have a similar number of registered rugby players as Australia, yet even with the Jaguares and...

Yeah the rugby boys won that one. The same rules were played in a match between Wests Magpies and Randwick a few years ago, which was won by the leaguies who ran away with it in the 2nd half. They benefited from having a few recent NRL players in the team. My feeling is at a professional level...

Probably a better example is when Sale played St Helens in 2003 as by then the union players had been fully professional for a few years. The first half with union rules (minus contested scrums), the 2nd half with league rules, but the scoring system was the same in both halves. Sale won the...

I'm really happy to see McLennan say this. It'd be way better to have 5 Australian based teams with 20% foreign players, than to have 4 teams with all local players. The foreign players can often be some of the most marketable players too.

I definitely agree with all that! I've said a few times that I think the most likely outcome is that we'll drop to 3 teams in a TT competition, but I just think we should do everything possible to not have to cut any teams. And ultimately I think we need more teams in Australia. When you cut...

Twiggy Forrest has a net worth of approx $13 billion. To put that into perspective, if he spent $100 million on something that would be equivalent to someone with a net worth of $1 million spending $7,692. If he wants to take over the professional tier of Australian rugby he can do it, whether...

Another option would be to just go all in with Twiggy Forrest and basically let him own that middle professional tier in Australia. Depends what he wants to do obviously and how much he wants to spend, but he has ridiculously deep pockets and seems pretty motivated to continue the push into the...

This is the reason a domestic professional competition with a significantly reduced salary cap (but enough to pay decent full time wages) would still retain a majority of the current professional players in Australia. It's not like soccer where there are virtually endless alternatives.

I think that is pretty likely and would be good for the sport, though Europe has hosted every 2nd world cup so far and they might not want that pattern to end in 2031. I guess the impact of Covid-19 might make South Africa less likely to bid for 2027, but who knows.

Are there any other countries even likely to bid for the 2027 world cup? So far Australia and Russia are the only two who've said they will and surely we'd be almost certainties to win that race. Argentina withdrew and backed us instead. USA Rugby filed for bankruptcy recently so 2027 might be a...