Biffo
Ken Catchpole (46)
Wayne Smith | June 04, 2009
Article from: The Australian
HOW well Australia does out of the SANZAR broadcast deal could decide whether a new version of the disbanded third-tier Australian Rugby Championship is set up.
The ARC lasted only one season, 2007, before a $4.7 million blowout forced the Australian Rugby Union to axe it. But while it may have been a financial disaster, from a purely rugby perspective it was a triumph, so much so that ARU boss John O'Neill is considering reviving it.
"I'm not abandoning the notion," O'Neill said. "Once we get the broadcast deal bedded down and once we've got a decision on where the new (expansion Super 15) team is going, and once we understand what we can and cannot afford, then we can turn our minds to the third tier.
"What the ARC did show was that there was an abundance of talent. Although it only went for one year, it shows if you give some of those players (from the Sydney and Brisbane club premierships) a chance, they can rise to the next level."
Indeed Ben Alexander jumped three levels in 12 months, going from second grade at Eastwood into the Western Sydney Rams, where he performed so strongly he was admitted to the Brumbies Academy at the end of 2007. Six strong performances off the bench for the Brumbies saw him plucked from obscurity to make his Test debut against France in Sydney last year and he now is firmly entrenched as a key member of the Wallabies squad leading into the 2011 World Cup.
"There is no debate from me about the concept, eight teams playing the best," O'Neill said. "I think the configuration should have been tighter and the competition should have been run on the smell of an oily rag. But once we know where we are post-SANZAR deal, let's look at some options."
Almost certainly one of those options would be a super-club competition but presumably the same rationale that caused the ARU to steer away from such a concept in 2007 -- namely that it would be grossly unfair to split the Sydney and Brisbane premierships into have and have-not clubs -- would still hold true.
Yet equally the 2007 model which delivered fairness by basically giving no one exactly what they wanted, would need to be seriously overhauled.
The creation of arbitrary and artificial teams such as the Gosford-based Central Coast Rays, the eventual champions, and the Western Sydney Rams meant the competition was starting from scratch, unable to tap into a century of club tribalism and having to build support from the ground up.
The fact that the competition was started in a World Cup year compounded the problem because it meant that more than 30 of the country's leading players weren't able to participate. If a new ARC is to be created, it would need to be up and running next year or else delayed until after the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand.
Any competition "run on the smell of an oily rag" almost by definition would be forced to exclude a Perth-based side because the travel costs, involved in sending teams to and from Western Australia during the 2007 series, helped doom the concept.
So too did the habit of ARC teams acting like mini-Super rugby sides by flying to away games two days in advance, sending accommodation costs skyrocketing. Any revived competition will have teams flying in and out on the day of the match.
Nor would it be likely the ARU would pay the ABC to televise the competition, as it did in 2007. But such was the quality of rugby played that year that broadcasters such as Fox might decide to tap into it of their own accord.
Article from: The Australian
HOW well Australia does out of the SANZAR broadcast deal could decide whether a new version of the disbanded third-tier Australian Rugby Championship is set up.
The ARC lasted only one season, 2007, before a $4.7 million blowout forced the Australian Rugby Union to axe it. But while it may have been a financial disaster, from a purely rugby perspective it was a triumph, so much so that ARU boss John O'Neill is considering reviving it.
"I'm not abandoning the notion," O'Neill said. "Once we get the broadcast deal bedded down and once we've got a decision on where the new (expansion Super 15) team is going, and once we understand what we can and cannot afford, then we can turn our minds to the third tier.
"What the ARC did show was that there was an abundance of talent. Although it only went for one year, it shows if you give some of those players (from the Sydney and Brisbane club premierships) a chance, they can rise to the next level."
Indeed Ben Alexander jumped three levels in 12 months, going from second grade at Eastwood into the Western Sydney Rams, where he performed so strongly he was admitted to the Brumbies Academy at the end of 2007. Six strong performances off the bench for the Brumbies saw him plucked from obscurity to make his Test debut against France in Sydney last year and he now is firmly entrenched as a key member of the Wallabies squad leading into the 2011 World Cup.
"There is no debate from me about the concept, eight teams playing the best," O'Neill said. "I think the configuration should have been tighter and the competition should have been run on the smell of an oily rag. But once we know where we are post-SANZAR deal, let's look at some options."
Almost certainly one of those options would be a super-club competition but presumably the same rationale that caused the ARU to steer away from such a concept in 2007 -- namely that it would be grossly unfair to split the Sydney and Brisbane premierships into have and have-not clubs -- would still hold true.
Yet equally the 2007 model which delivered fairness by basically giving no one exactly what they wanted, would need to be seriously overhauled.
The creation of arbitrary and artificial teams such as the Gosford-based Central Coast Rays, the eventual champions, and the Western Sydney Rams meant the competition was starting from scratch, unable to tap into a century of club tribalism and having to build support from the ground up.
The fact that the competition was started in a World Cup year compounded the problem because it meant that more than 30 of the country's leading players weren't able to participate. If a new ARC is to be created, it would need to be up and running next year or else delayed until after the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand.
Any competition "run on the smell of an oily rag" almost by definition would be forced to exclude a Perth-based side because the travel costs, involved in sending teams to and from Western Australia during the 2007 series, helped doom the concept.
So too did the habit of ARC teams acting like mini-Super rugby sides by flying to away games two days in advance, sending accommodation costs skyrocketing. Any revived competition will have teams flying in and out on the day of the match.
Nor would it be likely the ARU would pay the ABC to televise the competition, as it did in 2007. But such was the quality of rugby played that year that broadcasters such as Fox might decide to tap into it of their own accord.
